This is a quick courtesy alert:

The TAM group rate for the South Point Hotel is an amazing $45 weeknight / $85 weekend-night, but this guaranteed rate expires in just one week, on June 8.

JREF's discounted room block is filling fast. If you are planning on coming to TAM this year, please book your room now.

We pride ourselves on the fact that our discount hotel rate for TAM is roughly one-third the cost of other similar conferences. As a result, even shorter scientific skepticism conferences with somewhat lower registration fees often have a higher total cost of attendance when the hotel, travel, and meals are factored in.

Thats the value of The Amaz!ng Meeting! -- it is a full four day vacation from unreason, and includes presentations by dozens and dozens of stellar speakers, panel discussions featuring leading minds, hands-on workshops and activist training sessions, meals and other social activities, top-notch entertainment, parties and receptions, live podcasts, concerts, gaming tournaments and other events, like the Live Million Dollar Challenge. And all of this is actually cheaper than other skeptics conferences.

So don't wait! Book your room now, and register today:

South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa
9777 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89183
Phone: (866) 791-7626
Group discount code: AMA0707

 Recently I watched the documentary film, “Kumaré,” which debuted at the 2012 South by Southwest film festival, where it won the Feature Film Audience Award. The film was made by Vikram Gandhi, an American of Hindu extraction, who was born in New Jersey.

The film documents how Gandhi visited India to research gurus, and came to believe that most if not all of those he encountered firsthand were phonies and fakes of varying degrees. This in turn gives him an idea: Gandhi returns to America, grows out his hair and beard, adopts an Indian accent, and becomes a fake guru.

Inventing his own yoga moves and nonsense names, and a content-free pseudo-philosophy (“Find the guru within you,”), Gandhi transforms himself into a barefoot, staff-carrying yogi dubbed Sri Kumaré. Traveling to Arizona, he begins to gather a small cult of followers, practicing yoga and becoming a human reflection-pond with a permanent smile.

Here is a rundown of the week in psychic scams, several sad cases of believing in nonsense and some truly odd tidbits from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News.

Psychics were caught this week for fraud in Washington  and California using well-worn schemes to get people to give them money to remove bad spirits and curses.

The case of the faith-healing parents that lost a second child is back in the news as the death of their infant son is ruled a homicide.  The congregation they belong to has a history of childhood deaths due to lack of normal medical treatment.  

 A shady midwife in Nigeria prescribes herbs to women whom she convinces are actually pregnant. The babies come from the baby factory. It's more like human trafficking and abuse.  

Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo-woo in medicine.

Angelina Jolie, radical strategies for cancer prevention, and genetic denialism (David Gorski)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/angelina-jolie-radical-strategies-for-cancer-prevention-and-genetics-denialism/ Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a bilateral mastectomy is being criticized, including accusations of “mutilation” and conspiracy theories. She made a rational, science-based decision. Dr. Gorski explains the science and the surrounding issues, including the fact that the BRCA1 gene is patented and one company has a monopoly.

Progressive Mythology (Harriet Hall)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/progressive-mythology/ A review of the book Science Left Behind: Feel-Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left. There are anti-science attitudes on both sides of the aisle. The authors call for clear, unbiased thinking about public policies based on good scientific evidence rather than ideology-influenced distortions of science.