Wendy M. Grossman: May 2016 Archives

News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending 27 May 2016
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The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman.

Our staff, advisers and major grantees tweet at http://bit.ly/13j5fjq.

NEWS
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For breaking news stories, visit: http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:news/

Google appeals French "right to be forgotten" ruling
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The Guardian reports that Google has appealed to the Conseil d'Etat against a French court ruling requiring the company to remove results requested for delisting under the right to be forgotten from all its sites worldwide and for all users, not just from searches conducted from the EU. In an op-ed for France's Le Monde newspaper, Google global general counsel Kent Walker announced the company will appeal the ruling. Walker argues that French jurisdiction should not extend to requiring the removal of content from other national sites that is legal in those other countries. To do so, he says, would create the conditions for a "global race to the bottom, harming access to information that is perfectly lawful to view in one's own country."
Guardian: http://bit.ly/1WWPOIk
Google: http://bit.ly/1RtLA26

US: John Crane exposes the lives of Whistleblowers
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A Guardian excerpt from Mark Hertsgaard's new book Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden, reports the story of John Crane, a former senior official in the US Department of Defense. For years, Crane fought his superiors to provide fair treatment for pre-Snowden whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake and William Binney. Despite the provisions of the Whistleblower Act, Crane was stopped from providing necessary documents in time for Drake's trial; instead, he now recounts, his superiors lied to the judge that the documents had been destroyed prior to the indictment. Forced out in 2013, Crane filed a complaint with the Government Accountability Project over the above and many other misdeeds; the Justice Department is investigating.
Guardian: http://bit.ly/1U9kqPL

Twitter blocks law enforcement access to data mining service
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The ACLU reports, based on a (paywalled) Wall Street Journal article, that Twitter is to stop allowing US federal intelligence to access its affiliated Dataminr service, which compiles and analyses the hundreds of millions of tweets users post daily. ACLU argues that Twitter should extend the ban to local law enforcement, which similarly is buying surveillance tools that exploit Twitter user data, and goes on to advocate greater transparency about the many other such services on the market, such as Media Sonar and Geofeedia.
ACLU: http://bit.ly/1TCtSvM

Mozambique: $140 million Chinese system enables government surveillance
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Global Voices reports on the independent media outlet @Verdade's investigation of surveillance in Mozambique, where the government has been secretly listening to phone calls, reading emails and other text messages, and monitoring social media and web activity using a system reportedly built by the Chinese company ZTE Corporation. Built during the latter years of Armando Guebuza's 2005-2015 presidency, the scheme costs the Mozambique government US$140 million in a deal mediated by Guebuza's son's company, Msumbiji Investment Limited. Interceptions are managed by the military command, and neither judicial authorisation nor telecommunications company cooperation is needed.
Global Voices: http://bit.ly/1WPHDNb

US: Oracle v. Google to determine the future of software
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As the six-year-old copyright dispute between Google and Oracle over 37 Java APIs (application programming interfaces; that is, technical specifications that allow third parties to write programs using others' services or software) winds to a close, Wired explains why the case is crucially important for the future of software and what Google's loss could mean to start-ups and established developers alike. In prior hearings, Google won a ruling that APIs were not subject to copyright, but it was overturned on appeal and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The District Court will now decide whether Google's usage constitutes "fair use". As Sarah Jeong recounts at Motherboard, one of the most difficult aspects of the case has been explaining what APIs are to the non-expert judge and jury. Oracle is asking for $9.3 billion in damages.
Wired: http://bit.ly/1Vk6xU7
Motherboard: http://bit.ly/1qLOIRd

Elsevier acquires SSRN
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Nature reports that Elsevier has acquired the highly popular Social Science Research Network, an open-access research preprint repository, for an undisclosed sum. Elsevier says it intends to keep SSRN's leadership and user policies unchanged. The oldest and largest preprint server, arXiv, is funded by a host of institutions and operated by Cornell University; co-founder Paul Ginsparg told Nature there are no plans for it to change ownership.
Nature: http://bit.ly/1Z38gfF

Norway: Consumer council exposes app terms and conditions
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In February, the Norwegian Consumer Council published the results of a survey of mobile apps, which detailed the ways that their terms and conditions are opaque and privacy-invasive. The NCC went on to file a complaint against FitnessKeeper after finding that its Runkeeper app was leaking location information to an unknown third-party advertising company. Ars Technica reports that in response Runkeeper has fixed the bug that caused this issue. On May 24, the NCC staged a live-streamed full reading of all the T&Cs that apply to an average smartphone to demonstrate the burden on consumers. Deutsche Welle reports that reading the full text, longer than Moby Dick, took nearly 32 hours.
NCC (study): http://bit.ly/25o2oVq
Ars Technica: http://bit.ly/1qLP8H3
NCC (reading): http://www.forbrukerradet.no/terms-and-conditions-word-by-word
Deutsche Welle: http://bit.ly/1WWRj9l

UK: Pressure mounts for a "digital bill of rights"
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CDT reports that the UK think tank Cybersalon has launched a cross-party campaign, backed by a range of civil liberties groups, for a "digital bill of rights". The launch follows a series of efforts by Cybersalon to raise issues of technology and policy via live events. Further events and a process of collecting public opinions are planned before the bill is drafted. In response to Prime Minister David Cameron's call to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, the Guardian published a spoof video in which Patrick Stewart asks what the ECHR has ever done for the UK.
CDT: http://bit.ly/1Z38Jyc
Digital Liberties: http://bit.ly/1XzMGjY
Guardian: http://bit.ly/249ucHf

FEATURES AND ANALYSIS
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For more features and analysis selected by the Program team, visit:
http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:oped/

The magic of technology
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In this Medium article former magician and Google design ethicist Tristan Harris discusses the psychological and design tricks technology companies use to manipulate customers and keep them hooked on their apps and services.
Medium: http://bit.ly/20GPhrL

Sessions from RightsCon
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Among this selection of recorded videos from April's RightsCon are discussions of surveillance in Brazil, and the chilling effect of government programmes, largely targeting Muslims, aiming to counter extremism, particularly in schools (in one case, a child's comment on a school document led to her previously blameless physician father's investigation and arrest for insurance fraud). Particularly interesting is the discussion of surveillance, race, and movement building, which features an intelligent dissection of race, class, and power by Malkia Cyril, who notes that communities of colour have long been watched in everything they do for purposes of control (starting at about 4:00).
RightsCon: http://bit.ly/1TLGaFs

The rise of the mitigators
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In this blog posting at Civicist, mySociety founder Tom Steinberg divides internet-related organisations into two camps, "promoters" (technology companies, including non-profits such as Wikipedia and Mozilla) and "mitigators" (primarily non-profits such as EFF, Data & Society, the Chaos Computer Club, and Open Rights Group). While both groups have bloomed over the last two decades, Steinberg believes we are entering a period where mitigators will grow substantially and promoters will stall. While Steinberg is unsure what to think - in part, his posting is a request for thoughts - he is sad about the fading of the excitement over "public-interest technologies of real scale".
Civicist: http://bit.ly/1sAPJNa

The false promise of DNA testing
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In this Atlantic article, Matthew Shaer explores the flaws in DNA evidence created by changes in how forensic science is used, particularly focusing on the Houston forenscis lab, which was implicated in a number of false convictions. The increasing sensitivity of DNA testing has raised the probability of contamination through traces that formerly were too small for testing. Some US states have created conflicts of interest by paying forensic labs for successful convictions. Probabilistic genetic typing software may help solve the first problem; changing incentives and firewalling forensic labs from state prosecutors may help the second.
Atlantic: http://theatln.tc/1TYOVYI

The social licence of publishing
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In this year's Charles Clark Memorial Lecture (transcribed), University of Sydney professor Michael Fraser warns publishers that they are losing their social licence with the public. Publishers, he says, should re-engineer their business models both to provide better access to their works and better protect authors and should embrace their role as "defenders of freedom".
PLS: http://bit.ly/1Vk6PKA

The benefits of VR
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In this blog posting, the science fiction writer Charles Stross discusses his recent experiments with the HTC Vive virtual reality headset, which he finds to be shockingly good. Given the many scare stories about VR that lurk just around the corner (Stross links to some samples), Stross decided to highlight three unexpected benefits he thinks high-quality VR will bring: improved physical fitness, improved eyesight, and better treatments for mental illness.
Stross: http://bit.ly/1TDArDm

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DIARY
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To see more events recommended by the Information Program team, visit:
https://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:events/. If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.

Transparency Camp Europe
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June 1, 2016
Amsterdam, Netherlands
This unconference will focus on open data, new technologies, and policies that make the EU work for people, stimulate open government, and help grasp the workings of the various EU institutions. The event will include an online app competition.
http://bit.ly/1WuJ445

Health Privacy Summit
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June 6-7
Washington, DC
The 2016 Health Privacy Summit brings together top national and international experts for serious discussion about global health privacy issues and realistic solutions and to ask, Is Big Data effectively the beginning of the end for privacy in health care?
http://bit.ly/1Qw5AkN

20th International Conference on Electronic Publishing
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June 7-9, 2016
Göttingen, Germany
ELPUB 2016 will take a fresh look at the current ecosystem of scholarly publishing including the positioning of stakeholders and distribution of economic, technological and discursive power. ELPUB will also open the floor for emerging alternatives in how scholars and citizens interact with scholarly content and what role dissemination and publishing plays in these interactions. Questions to be raised include: What is the core of publishing today? How does agenda setting in emerging frameworks like Open Science function and what is the nature of power of the referring scholarly discourses? How does this relate to the European and world-wide Open Science and Open Innovation agenda of funders and institutions, and how does this look like in publishing practice?
http://bit.ly/1qXdIFo

Personal Democracy Forum
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June 9-10
New York, NY
The 2016 Personal Democracy Forum will feature speakers such as Danah Boyd, Kate Crawford, Douglas Rushkoff, and Anil Dash.
http://bit.ly/1ExPHDH

Workshop on the Economics of Information Security
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June 13-14, 2016
Berkeley, CA
The Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS) is the leading forum for interdisciplinary scholarship on information security and privacy, combining expertise from the fields of economics, social science, business, law, policy, and computer science.
http://bit.ly/1RgmF6w

OR2016 Conference
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June 13-16, 2016
Dublin, NL
The theme of OR2016 is "Illuminating the World." OR2016 will provide an opportunity to explore the impact of repositories and related infrastructure and processes.
http://bit.ly/1pcUNp4

SOUPS
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June 22-24
Denver, Colorado
The 12th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners in human computer interaction, security, and privacy. The program will feature technical papers, workshops and tutorials, a poster session, panels and invited talks, and lightning talks.
http://bit.ly/1Tn7bwy

VOX-Pol Mid-Project conference
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June 22-24, 2016
Dublin, Ireland
The VOX-Pol Network of Excellence is an EU-funded academic research network focused on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of violent online political extremism and responses to it. The conference will feature sessions describing and discussing in-depth and cutting-edge research on violent political extremism and terrorism and the Internet.
http://bit.ly/1U9kfnn

Wikimania
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June 24-26
Esino Lario, Italy
Wikimania is the annual conference celebrating Wikipedia and its sibling free knowledge projects with conferences, discussions, meetups, training, and a hackathon. Hundreds of volunteer editors come together to learn about and discuss projects, approaches and issues.
http://bit.ly/24m1rci

Jisc and CNI Conference 2016
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July 6, 2016
Oxford, UK
This year's Joint Information Systems Committee and Coalition for Networked Information conference will bring together leading experts from the US, UK, and Europe to explore the current issues and innovations in digital scholarship and facilitate a rich international exchange on leading practice and policy.
http://bit.ly/238UBnS

21st-Century Literacies for Public Libraries
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August 10-11, 2016
Philadelphia, PA
At this two-day satellite meeting, presented by IFLA's Public Libraries Section, delegates will share and learn from each other's experiences in developing and delivering services that encompass today's expanded concept of literacy, which includes not only the traditional ability to read and write but proficiency in a range of other literacies such as civic, health, financial, digital, and information.
http://bit.ly/1PZhExo

IFLA World Library and Information Congress
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August 13-19, 2016
Columbus, OH
The theme of the 82nd IFLA Congress is "Connections. Collaboration. Community." The Congress will feature programmes from myriad library sectors.
http://2016.ifla.org/

Privacy+Security Forum
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October 24-26, 2016
Washington, DC
Monday, October 24, is devoted to pre-conference workshops and "intensive days" - advanced discussion focused narrowly on a particular topic or industry. Proposals are welcome until April 30, 2016 based on the following guiding principles: bridge the silos between privacy and security; cover issues with depth and rigour; employ interaction, scenario-based learning, and extensive engagement; deliver practical takeaways from each session.
http://bit.ly/1RIzYhV

Mozilla Festival
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November 6-8, 2016
London, UK
MozFest is an annual celebration of the open Web. Participants are diverse, including engineers, artists, activists, and educators, but share the common belief that the Web can make lives better, unlocks opportunity, spurs creativity, teaches valuable skills, and connects far-flung people and ideas. The Festival seeks to improve the Web with new ideas and creations.
http://bit.ly/1WmxRQ0

OpenCon
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November 12-14, 2016
Washington, DC
At this event, the next generation can learn about Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data, develop critical skills, and catalyse action toward a more open system of research and education. OpenCon will convene students and early career academic professionals, both in person and through satellite events around the world and serve as a powerful catalyst for projects led by the next generation to advance OpenCon's three focus areas.
http://bit.ly/1OocSMD

Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection
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January 25-27, 2017
Brussels
The tenth CPDP's main theme is artificial intelligence. The conference is accepting proposals for panels in April (from academic consortia, research projects, think tanks, and other research organisations) and May (from individuals wishing to present academic research papers).
http://bit.ly/1OrQSv6

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Previously in wg's TV adventures...Marc Wootton, presenting himself as "Shirley Ghostman".

A guy named Jonathan Levene (@jjlevene on Twitter) called me and asked if I'd do an interview with some guy for a pilot for a TV series getting people to talk about religious beliefs and science. I said sure. They didn't really tell me much - said it would be an interview/discussion and that it was as much a screen test for the interviewer as...I don't know what.

He said they're hoping to sell the show to HBO, but the company's website says it's developing a show for PBS. Since the website consists of a single page, I presume it's only there to show prospective participants *something*. The show as described to me *might* sell to PBS - I can see it running a religious/science discussion show; it didn't and doesn't seem like HBO's kind of thing - though an "edgy" British comedy show might be.

On arrival at Grange Park (we were filming at Denmark Studios in Enfield), Jonathan met me and asked me to wait with a cup of tea in the local cafe while he went to make sure they were ready. The studio was very small and cramped, he said. On arrival there, though, I noticed a large, empty couch...

In the cafe, Jonathan explained I would be discussing science and religion with someone he called (I think) "Dr Dave". He had me sign a one-page contract/release, which I read. I remember the jurisdiction was New York (which is the address All of the Above Media gives on its one-page website), but Jonathan didn't offer, and I didn't think to ask for, a copy. In future, my rule will be never to sign releases until recording has completed.

The studio itself was (weirdly?) empty of people except for Jonathan, who brought me in, someone who asked if I'd turned off my mobile phone, a tech who clipped on a radio mic, checked levels, adjusted the mic, and then vanished, the three cameramen, and then the guy himself, who said barely anything when he arrived bearing a clipboard with what appeared to be two pages filled with lines of small type, which he kept in his lap behind the desk and frequently consulted. The fact that there was a monitor behind us with "YOU DECIDE" displayed on it, gold on royal blue, with a Christian cross between the two words hinted that either HBO was going into religious broadcasting (*so* unlikely), the producers were delusional (a possibility I seriously considered), or I'd been set up in some unknown way for some kind of comedy skit....because you really could imagine that backdrop for an SNL segment or something. I had been told we'd be filming in front of a green screen, and indeed the backdrop and side drops were all featureless bright green - which means, of course, that there will be some kind of projected background. That could be *anything*.

"Dr Dave" (assuming I've remembered the name I was given correctly) was *very* far removed from not only my sense of reality but anyone else's, which meant he was either in need of medical treatment or attempting a send-up, like Shirley.

All the above little points which I didn't fully note consciously at the time, are my best attempt at explaining why the possibility of a set-up never left my mind all day. Even in the cafe I found myself telling Jonathan the Shirley Ghostman story, and that makes me think I already sensed something off, but I don't know what.

The following is what I remember of the ensuing conversation, though they may not be in the order in which they occurred and are not a complete account (we talked for nearly two very long hours...); they're what I can remember. I'm posting this as a contemporaneous record just in case of...I'm not sure what.

The director (I guess) said we were recording as live, counted down from five, and we were off. He immediately vanished, leaving the set with Dave, me, and the three mute cameraman.

- His mostly bald head kind of bulged toward the back, which made me wonder if it was makeup/prosthetic/a bald cap. He had been thoroughly powdered to avoid shine, and I thought it was interesting no one had suggested doing the same to me, since they often do. I was wearing no makeup at all (since I never do).

- He began by introducing the segment so diffidently and hesitantly that I thought they'd ask him to stop and restart, and when they didn't, I thought OK, they said it was a screen test for him, but if that's true this guy is already obviously too incompetent to use, so why are they continuing?

- I was unsure about his accent; it seemed to me American but I thought I heard some non-native fuzziness around the edges, which could be the result of living in England for a long time or a British person putting on an American accent. Or...not.

- He said he was a cardiologist and also had a PhD in history, so the "Dr" was earned (twice). What were my qualifications? "I'm a dilettante," I said cheerfully. He demanded that I explain this word. (A guy with two degrees, including one in history, who doesn't know "dilettante"? Sure...or maybe he thinks the audience won't understand it). I said, "It means I'm an amateur."

- We briefly discussed my founding of The Skeptic and why I did it, and explained that "skepticism is inquiry" and that skeptics ask for evidence and that we don't tackle matters of faith.

- He asked about my religious beliefs, and I said I had grown up without any. Well, what did I call myself? I said I usually said I was an "agnostic". He asked what that meant and how it was different from other terms. I said, Well, to me an atheist is someone who denies the existence of God and an agnostic is someone to whom it's not important.

- He started talking about God, "He", "His"... For some reason I tried a joke: "Surely, She's black". Huh? What was that about? I explained the old 1970s joke where someone says he's been to Heaven and the person he's talking to says, "Did you meet God? What's He like?" "Well, first of all, She's black..." He seemed confused by this explanation.

- At some point, maybe 20-30 minutes in (I think; I'd forgotten my watch, which was a pity), it was bizarre enough and had gone on long enough that I turned to the room at large and said, "What are we really doing here?" The cameramen remained silent, like one of those scenes in a Gothic novel where the heroine, discovering that her host is a monster, finds herself alone except for servants whose mouths, eyes, and ears have been sewn shut.

- He began talking about creation "science". Did I believe in it. I said the scientific evidence provided pretty strong support for evolution. He seemed to feel it was just obvious that everything must have been designed. "Who designed the designer?" I asked. Apparently the designer just *was*. "Oh,", I said, "So it's turtles all the way down?" I had to explain this joke to him. He then said that the big bang theory didn't really explain where the universe came from, either - what was before the explosion? Well, he had me there.

- At some point I explained that as a skeptic I'm prepared to simply say that I don't know the explanation for things rather than pick on something easy just to have an explanation. Later, he used this to characterize me/skeptics as ignorant and offer viewers the choice promised on the monitor (You Decide) - presumably between our ignorance and his knowledge.

- He kept citing some science institute in Kansas whose name I don't fully remember and can't look up because it was utterly bland as the source of various "scientific" claims. In fact, all the names connected with this operation are too non-distinctive for successful online searches, which seems like a useful design if you're trying to play people. I did note that he stressed the Kansas the three or four times he mentioned it, which made me wonder if he was trying to get me to comment on that (I didn't), but he didn't generally leave space if I'd wanted to. I feel bad for Kansans; most of them don't deserve to be the butt of random people's potshots.

- A couple of times at the beginning I giggled. Why was I laughing, he asked. Since I can't now remember what I found funny, I can't explain it now either. Most of the experience was pretty tedious.

- He repeatedly accused me of flirting with and/or being attracted to him (as IF).

- At some point - I can't remember why now - I mentioned being 10 in 1964. "I'd have thought it was earlier," he said. I went on with whatever I was saying and thought it was lucky I don't have that particular insecurity. (It was, too, because see below. Before you ask, my Twitter picture is from 2008. I need a new one)

- Several times he made comments indicating I look older than my actual age (62); he asked me to guess his (because he lives on this super-healthy Adam and Eve diet, see, about which he said he wrote a book (which - there is such a book, but he's not the author) ) and after trying to get out of it because I'm crap at guessing ages I decided to make sure I'd hit an age high enough to fend off any claim he might make of unexpected youthfulness and said, "72". He said he was indeed 72 and then kept saying how much younger he looked (not if I guessed right, surely?) than not only *his* age, but *me* and that he wouldn't have believed I was ten years younger. I told him I wasn't lying, and that my age is correctly displayed on my Wikipedia page, which he replied (granted, correctly) that I could have edited (but I didn't!). He embedded several comments about my looking older in other statements - not leaving space for me to argue. If it was meant to make me mad...meh. I have a little too much ego for that. If he intentionally wanted to look like a jackass, well, I guess he succeeded, if you think saying someone looks older is insulting. Is breaking that taboo funny? It was stupid of me to bother arguing with him about this at all.

- He apologized to his wife, "Jean", on camera several times for my "inappropriate flirting" with him. Almost at the end, after the last such apology, I turned to the camera, and said, "Yes. Jean, I also apologize." He sharply objected: "Don't talk to my wife" and then quickly muttered, "She's been through enough." No, I did not say, "Well, married to you, I'm not surprised."

- He used first his hand ("Guess how many hand surgeons there are at the Mayo Clinic." "I don't know." "Seven." Because the hand is the most complicated part of the human body...) and then a banana he had ready to explain why there had to be a divine designer. The banana, he said, is perfect ("it's non-slip..."; it's color-coded to show when it's unripe (green), ready to eat (yellow), and dangerous (black - although actually black doesn't mean they're dangerous, just that they're overripe, and ick), and challenged me to explain how evolution could possibly have produced it. He partially peeled it ("the top snaps like a Coke can", another part of its perfect packaging) and suggestively slid the unsheathed portion into his mouth several times to show how perfectly it "fits into a MAN's mouth". I longed to joke about this, but said nothing. The banana led to his saying that this is what Adam and Eve ate - fruit, and he mentioned some fruits and the bit about having written the book, and I asked about apples. Well, no, they're not on the list. They only ate *one* apple, and that caused the Fall. This led directly to...

- ...He "cried" about his past as a "chronic masturbator", which he was able to end by stopping eating apples, which are, of course, the fruit of sin. I noticed no moisture around the eyes or nose. This led to...

- The society-wide level of masturbation before the flood hit 99% and the *next day* God issued his instructions to Noah. He's basing this on, apparently, semen found in clay pots in Jerusalem. I said, "Well, they probably didn't have socks," a joke that he asked me to *explain*. I sort of tried; I wasn't embarrassed, if that's what he hoped. (Come on, I wanted to say, We've all seen Friends. Chandler's sock was a whole plot.) And...

- Masturbation level is now nearly 8% (which I queried on the basis that it was insanely low). For men, since there are no statistics for women (I guess we don't spill seed), and that if everyone stopped climate change would reverse. He had a colored world map for each set of statistics ready and cued-up (another indicator of a set-up, I think - what genuine program would have put this guy on once they'd seen them?). "Have you ever met a masturbator?" he asked. "I've met you," I said reasonably...which led to more of the weeping-in-shame routine.

- He claimed that "Onanism" caused billions of lost souls; I stupidly argued this, pointing out that even in a pregnancy-causing ejaculation millions of sperm were still wasted. "Ah," he said, "but those are not viable. They're retarded, or..." I forget what, but I went on to make the point that therefore he could only reasonably argue that 1 to 10 of the spilled seed were lost souls. I "won" that one.

- He said he had seven kids. I remember feeling sorry for them (if they actually exist).

- At some point, he began passing off the jokes I did make with a line like "I suppose that's humor". I guess he got tired of claiming he didn't understand them and asking me to explain.

- How, he wanted to know, did I explain the picture he'd found online of a duck with tiny human feet? "Was it Photoshopped?" I asked. No, it was verified by that same institute in KANSAS. What did I intuitively think? "I don't know - I haven't seen it or the evidence." Women are supposed to be intuitive: what's your intuition. Ignoring the women are intuitive stupidity: "Probably what I asked first: is it a hoax?" I did look for such a picture when I got home and found one in a joke thread in a Christian forum alongside some other wacky pictures of ducks. It is *obviously* composited; that may be where they got the idea. (It's here: http://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/189353-derailing-thread/?page=23)

- This led to my using an analogy of Randi's to try to get across "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". If you claim you have a horse in your backyard, I might believe you and not bother to check. "Unless I live in New York City." Yes. I had been about to say "Unless your backyard is in Brooklyn." (There is actually a current TV series in which the TWO BROKE GIRLS were supposedly keeping a horse in their Brooklyn backyard at the beginning of season 1; one of the many reasons I watched only one episode - they have no space, and they're *broke*. How are they feeding it and where do they put the droppings?) But, I went on to say, if you tell me you have a unicorn in your backyard - at which point Randi usually talks about getting samples of the horn and checking for glue. He interrupted and said, "That's impossible. Unicorns don't exist." I wish I'd had the wit to suggest they may be living in those unexplored parts of China, but I didn't think of it.

- At some point he talked about how he saw the Lord in everything and asked if I didn't, too. "No." I tried another analogy (yes, I know I should have learned by then), and asked if when he went outdoors on a beautiful day and saw the blue sky and green in the landscape he saw purple. "Yes." "In everything?" "Yes." So much for that idea.

- He talked about how the Lord gives meaning to everything in his life, and that's impossible without God and His guidance/moral code. I said that many of the things I do - and I named as an example serving on the advisory council of the Open Rights Group to help promote civil liberties on the internet - are meaningful to me without worrying about a God. (Now, unlike most of the rest of this discussion, *this* part of the conversation I have had before, with a very conservative Christian I knew when I lived in Ireland; I think every agnostic or atheist has had it at least once. It never leads anywhere because it's extremely hard to convey *why* something gives meaning to your life. But at least it was a short break from the surrealism.)

- It was pretty infuriating that he kept taking things I'd said and misconstruing them and then repeating them. eg, he said something about longevity, and I commented that although the *average* lifespan has been increasing for some decades the *maximum* known lifespan hasn't really budged. Ah, he said but there are some people living in "unexplored parts of China" (where are those? where on this planet is unexplored?) who are 150 years old, and I said, well, the birth records aren't always accurate from that long ago - so he accused me of racism and said his business manager is Chinese and they can keep records perfectly well. (Saying I'd had a Chinese accountant didn't seem to help this.)

- At the end, he asked me to pray with him. I refused, and simply watched him while he said some things, ending with a prayer for the "Reverend Trump". "Reverend?" I asked. "As in revered," he said. I indicated that I thought he'd been implying that Trump was some sort of minister. Apparently not. He also told me he loved everything and everyone, including me - but not in a sexual way because that would be inappropriate because he's married. "No, you don't," I said. "You really don't." (And I believe that's true not only of his "Christian" persona but whatever his real one is.)

Afterwards, Jonathan seemed shocked and asked why I didn't slap him (I don't slap people of any age - I took it as an expression of sympathy, but perhaps he was disappointed), and promised me that either it's not a setup or they set *him* up too. I have since learned that he asked another skeptic he approached to appear on the show what kind of comedy he liked. Ah: he and I also talked about comedy, which at the time I put down to my rambling conversational style. Learning that it was on the list of topics for discussion (whether Jonathan made the list or the producers did), as far as I was concerned, clinched the set-up theory. I also noticed that a) the guy disappeared the instant the cameras went off and they got me out of there and into a waiting car PDQ so I didn't talk to anyone afterwards except Jonathan. I also note that Jonathan told me he'd gotten me a car because it had gone on so long - but the cab driver told me he'd been waiting for two hours, and the time he said they called him was right about when recording started. So in fact, the car was probably to avoid risking having to wait with - and therefore talk to - me for any length of time while we walked to the station and waited for a train. (It was annoying: the car took twice as long as the train would have.)

The thing was that through the whole thing I kept thinking about the Shirley Ghostman experience, and this felt very much like that - bizarre, surreal, inconsistent with my prior experience (in Shirley's case, of psychics; in this case, of Christian fundamentalists), and that actually tempered my reactions. If it was a set-up, I thought anything dramatic would be yay! for them. Also, because it went on so long eventually it was obvious that at most they'd only ever use two chopped-up minutes of it. At the time, I wasn't as sure as I later became that it was a set-up, so my reasoning was: if the guy is meant to be real he's too lunatic and too incompetent to use, so none of this will ever appear, and if it's a set-up I'm not sure what kind, but they've lied to me and I don't need to help them. At some point it went on so long (they'd said recording would take an hour and it went on for two), I just let myself get bored and skipped responding to anything I didn't feel like bothering with.

Of course, I *also* never asked him point-blank if he was a fake, and although I think that's what this type of set-up relies on (that you, the butt of the joke, will try to work with the other person rather than shoot to kill), I also don't think I would have gotten anywhere doing that. One reason I think skeptics are vulnerable to becoming the butts of other people's jokes - aside from the "oh, look at the pointy-eared people with glasses" thing - is that skeptics who do much TV tend tread gently with other people's beliefs. Many are genuinely deeply held; many of the people who hold them have had terrible things happen in their lives. Even the people who are selling something - their capabilities as a medium, for example - require polite treatment because if you aren't what the viewing public will see is a nice, kindly person who just wants to help people, and an elitist smart-ass telling them off. So I will ask what the evidence is or talk generally about cases where the evidence is known and shows an alternative explanation, and Chris French will talk about the psychology of belief, and generally none of us will break on-screen and call people idiots, delusional, or whatever no matter how apparently absurd their statements are because it makes both us personally and skepticism in general look bad. I guess that's what happens when you have meaning in your life.

On the way to the car, when I marveled at the guy's obvious impossibility Jonathan said, "that's why we do these screen tests."

Whatever.

Whois says the alltheabovemedia.com domain is registered via GoDaddy, so I can't get any more information that way. I suppose all will be revealed someday (or not). Anyway, I'm posting this account to have a contemporaneous record. And yes, I don't like being someone else's plaything, and I *really* don't like having the skeptics made to look stupid. If that's their game. Forty-eight hours later, no one has bothered to tell me.

wg