Tonight, JOY 94.9am radio in Melbourne (Australia's only gay and lesbian radio station) will be replaying (with permission) my audio segment from the Mount Ainslie rally. It will be on the Hide and Seek program, airing from 11pm tonight.

Episode 12 is now available through the Nonsense Podcast website, or on iTunes, featuring the audio of the Mt Ainslie rally. Plus, of course, many other interesting items. :)

For those who didn't know, there was a rally/protest today atop Mount Ainslie. Here's the story.

Pastor Danny Nalliah, from Catch the Fire Ministries, decided that Canberra needed a spiritual cleansing. He decided that there were bloodstains on the plinth supporting the aviation beacon, and that these were from covens of witches doing blood sacrifices up there.

Anyway, the Australian Sex Party got wind of it and organised a protest. I went up there to cover the event for the Nonsense Podcast. I got about 10min worth of audio/interviews, which will be featured on the next episode, due out in a couple of days.

As is my wont, I also got a few photos. Behind the cut.

( Photos )

The audio will be on Episode 12 of the Nonsense Podcast, due to hit iTunes and your reader of choice within the next couple of days.

There's not all that much to see today, I'm afraid. I spent the day hanging out with the Lancasters - Robert and Susan. I won't tell their entire story here, but Robert is the person behind the Stop Kaz and Stop Sylvia Browne websites. He had a major stroke last August, and has been recovering under care ever since. He finally went home last week - he's now in excellent health. He still has mobility problems, and probably will have for some time, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with his mind. We exchanged stories. Great guy, and Susan is a wonderful woman. I'll be seeing them again at TAM.

I've been saying while preparing for this trip that I'm going to be interviewing Jesus Christ while I'm here. And I did - well, I interviewed Neil Saavedra, the host of the Jesus Christ Show on KFI-AM here in Los Angeles. It was a lot of fun. Neil is another great guy, and a very good friend of Robert and Susan (that's how I got the interview in the first place). I'm told he's something of a celebrity here in LA.

So I got an excellent interview for the God's Word segment of the podcast, covering the fundamentals of faith, extremism, his show and so forth. It'll probably be on Episode 7, since we're reserving 6 for a TAM special report.

Anyway, I need to be up really early tomorrow morning to drive out to the Grand Canyon. Expect some photos. :)

Well, I leave for the US in about a month, and I've been lining up interviews for while I'm there.

First up, I'll be speaking with Neil Saavedra, who is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show called "The Jesus Christ Show", in which he answers caller questions in the persona of the Saviour himself. That will be taking place in the early afternoon of the 7th.

I've also been put in touch with the JREF's Media Director, Bart, who has said that he can probably organise me some time with pretty much anyone I want. My wish list currently consists of: Randi, Phil Plait, Hal Bidlack, Tim Farley, D.J. Grothe, George Hrab, Joe Nickell, Steve Novella, Rebecca Watson, Adam Savage... and a few others.

This is going to be way cool. No, it's going to be way cool!

Episode 2: Featuring a puzzling riddle, a skeptical look at recent news and part one of two, discussing our trip to The Living Planet Vegan Festival and the Mind, Body, Spirit Festival.

http://www.nonsensepodcast.com/

Recording is done! We should have it available by the end of the week.

We had some technical difficulties when we did the first session last night. Essentially the way we do it is this: Jason has his studio in Sydney, and I Skype in and we record the conversation at both ends. I use the Skype Recorder software, which cost me about $30. Jason splices the two recordings together to get the final mix.

Last night, the Skype call dropped out for no apparent reason. When the recording finishes, it spends a while encoding and compressing the recording. Since we had about an hour's worth of conversation at that stage, it took quite a while. HOWEVER - we reconnected Skype and continued before it was ready. So Jason had his recording but we didn't get my backup.

Turns out Jason's recording had lots of compression artifacts and dropouts, and was mostly unusable. So we had to re-record the Pseudo News, the seques into It's All Nonsense and Get To Know Your Skeptic, and the riddle and show outro tonight. Which worked rather well in the end - we got it done inside half an hour.

Episode 2 will feature acupuncture, vaccination, the Pope and his boss, a look at the Mind Body Spirit Wallet festival and an interview with Ordinary Guy from the BrainsMatter podcast.

Episode 1 of the Nonsense Podcast is live!

This episode, we have Barry the Giant Sea Worm, UFOs, Miracle Oil, finding Jesus, a detailed look at Biodynamic Farming practices and an interview with Richard Saunders.

My desktop computer will not start. It's dead. It appears to have a power supply problem, since there is absolutely no response from pushing he power button. Like it was simply unplugged - except that it's not.

All is not lost - I have a laptop. I can do most of the things on the laptop that I could do on the main box. There is, however, some data on that computer that I kinda need. I also have some software installed on that machine and not on this one that I need - in particular the Skype Recorder that I have registered. The registration key, is of course in my email folder on the desktop box.

I need the Skype Recorder because I've got an interview lined up for this weekend for the Nonsense Podcast.

Nate Phelps is one of the estranged children of Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps. He recently came out as an atheist and gave a speech at the American Atheists Convention. He has a website where he has posted the transcript of that speech. It's pretty harrowing reading.

But this is my very first real interview, ever, and I'm struggling a little with my preparation. So I'll ask the LJ Muse:

Read Nate's story. What would you like me to ask him?

Tonight I did primary recording for Episode One of the Nonsense Podcast. This episode features Barry the Giant Sea Worm, UFOs, Wine Horoscopes, biodynamic farming methods, and Richard Saunders of the Australian Skeptics and The Skeptic Zone.

We also recorded a promo, which Richard will be adding to the next episode of The Skeptic Zone. Make sure you download this episode - it's got an interview with Stephen Fry. Yes, our promo will be on the same episode as Stephen Fry!

Apparently, as of a few days ago, we had a hundred-and-fifty-something downloads on iTunes, and our Rating is towards the top end of the bar. We also have 201 members in our Facebook group, and we're the second top result in a Google search for "Nonsense Podcast".

My big news for this week is that Nate Phelps has informally agreed to do an interview with me for the God's Word segment. That will be fascinating. All we have to do is work out the 10-hour time difference...

AU$33.58 isn't too bad for a Skype recorder that actually works, is it?

Episode Zero of the Nonsense Podcast is live!

Episode Zero serves as an introduction - both to the podcast and to Jason and I, your hosts.

We outline what we indend to do in the future and, in our "Get To Know Your Skeptic" segment, interview each other.

Please let me know what you think of our very first attempt at podcasting. Personally, I'm pretty pleased with it.

I got back tonight from an afternoon in Sydney, doing primary recording for Episode Zero of the Nonsense Podcast. We should have it online and available for download within a few days. The link will be nonsensepodcast.com (don't go there just yet...) but we'll also have it available on iTunes and all major podcast hosts.

In Episode Zero, we introduce the podcast and what it's all about, outline the various segments we are planning, and interview each other for our "Get to know a skeptic" segment. By the end of the Quickies, we were riffing off each other like pros. It took us only a couple of hours recording, plus three hours editing on Jason's part, and it's all done.

It was fun. It was a lot of fun. Of course, I did have the delightful wolfkit (The Navigatrix) to keep me company on the drive up and back, which was nice.

I am now listed as co-host for the upcoming Nonsense Podcast (those on Facebook can join the group).

The podcast is intended to highlight the latest in pseudoscientific news and lack of critical thinking by journalists in the mainstream media.We will also include interviews and research performed by the Nonsense Team.

We don't have an official website yet, because we're still in the planning stage, but Jason (my co-host) has some really big plans. If all goes well, we could be heard across the globe!

If anyone wants to help out with research, let me know!