James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author, and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.#Rodrigues, Rodrigues 2010p. 271 He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87. Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator". He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', famously exposing fraudulent faith healer Peter Pop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge
The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge was an offer by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) to pay out one million U.S. dollars to any famous person who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. A version of the challenge was first issued in 1964. Over a thousand people applied to take it, but none was successful. The challenge was terminated in 2015. History James Randi developed the idea for the challenge during a radio panel discussion when a parapsychologist challenged him to "put [his] money where [his] mouth is." In 1964, Randi offered a $1,000 prize, soon increasing it to $10,000. Later, Lexington Broadcast Services Company, Lexington Broadcasting wanted Randi to do a show called the $100,000 Psychic Prize, so they added $90,000 to the original $10,000 raised by Randi. Finally, in 1996, one of his friends, Internet pioneer Rick Adams (Internet pioneer), Rick Adams, donated $1 million for the prize. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of North American cities by population, fourth-most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. As of 2024, the census metropolitan area had an estimated population of 7,106,379. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multiculturalism, multicultural and cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan cities in the world. Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Faith Healer
Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healing of disease and disability can be brought about by religious faith through prayer or other rituals that, according to adherents, can stimulate a divine presence and power. Religious belief in divine intervention does not depend on empirical evidence of an evidence-based outcome achieved via faith healing. Virtually all scientists and philosophers dismiss faith healing as pseudoscience.See also: Claims that "a myriad of techniques" such as prayer, divine intervention, or the ministrations of an individual healer can cure illness have been popular throughout history. There have been claims that faith can cure blindness, deafness, cancer, HIV/AIDS, developmental disorders, anemia, arthritis, corns, defective speech, multiple sclerosis, skin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Astrologer
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of Celestial objects in astrology, celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in Calendrical calculation, calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindu astrology, Hindus, Chinese astrology, Chinese, and the Maya civilization, Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, fr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cities by population, ninth-largest in North America. It was founded in 1642 as ''Fort Ville-Marie, Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", and is now named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked mountain around which the early settlement was built. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal and a few, much smaller, peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. The city is east of the national capital, Ottawa, and southwest of the provincial capital, Quebec City. the city had a population of 1,762,949, and a Census geographic units of Canada#Census metropolitan areas, metropolitan population of 4,291,732, making it the List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada, second-largest metropolitan area in Canada. French l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Canadian National Exhibition
The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), also known as The Exhibition or The Ex, is an annual fair that takes place at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on the third Friday of August leading up to and including Labour Day (Canada), Labour Day, the first Monday in September. With approximately 1.6 million visitors each year, the CNE is Canada's largest annual community event and one of the top fairs in North America. The exhibition, then known as the Toronto Industrial Exhibition, first took place in 1879, largely to promote agriculture and technology in Toronto and area. Agriculturists, engineers, and scientists exhibited their discoveries and inventions at the CNE. The event has since expanded to include a carnival, live music, parades, an air show, various entertainments, sporting events, as well as art displays and specialty vendors and foods. Special events include the Warriors' Day Parade, the Labour Day Parade (Toronto), Labour Day Parade and the Canadian Int ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Mentalism
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Mentalists perform a theatrical act that includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces but that is actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities (i.e. reading body language, refined intuition, subliminal communication, emotional intelligence), and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics. Mentalism is commonly classified as a subcategory of magic and, when performed by a stage magician, may also be referred to as ''mental magic''. However, many professional mentalists today may generally distinguish themselves from magicians, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Tampa Bay Times
The ''Tampa Bay Times'', called the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit journalism school directly adjacent to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single year for the first time in its history, one of which was for its PolitiFact project. History The newspaper traces its origin to the ''West Hillsborough Times'', a weekly newspaper established in Dunedin, Florida, on the Pinellas Peninsula in 1884. At the time, neither St. Petersburg nor Pinellas County existed; the peninsula was part of Hillsborough County. The paper was published weekly in the back of a pharmacy and had a circulation of 480. It subsequently changed ownership six times in seventeen years. In December 1884, it wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Torstar
Torstar Corporation is a Canadian mass media company which primarily publishes news. It is known for publishing the ''Toronto Star'', its flagship and namesake. Torstar was purchased by NordStar Capital LP, which is currently owned by Jordan Bitove. They also publishes daily newspapers in Hamilton, Peterborough, Niagara Region, and Waterloo Region. In addition to the Metroland Media Group and a minority position on Canadian Press. The corporation was initially established in 1958 to take over operations of the ''Star'' from the Atkinson Foundation after a provincial law banned charitable organizations from owning for-profit entities. From 1958 to 2020, the class A shares of Torstar were held by the families of the original Atkinson Foundation trustees. The private investment firm NordStar Capital LP, formed by Paul Rivett and Jordan Bitove, acquired the company in 2020 In 2022, Rivett left NordStar due to disputes with Bitove. History Torstar was founded after the Onta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. The newspaper was established in 1892 as the ''Evening Star'' and was later renamed the ''Toronto Daily Star'' in 1900, under Joseph E. Atkinson. Atkinson was a major influence in shaping the editorial stance of the paper, with the paper reflecting his principles until his death in 1948. His son-in-law, Harry C. Hindmarsh, shared those principles as the paper's longtime managing editor while also helping to build circulation with sensational stories, bold headlines and dramatic photos. The paper was renamed the ''Toronto Star'' in 1971 and introduced a Sunday edition in 1977. History The ''Star'' was created in 1892 by striking ''Toronto News'' printers and writers, led by future mayor of Toronto and social reformer Horatio Clarence Hocke ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Orthopedic Cast
An orthopedic cast, commonly referred to simply as a cast, is a form of medical treatment used to immobilize and support bones and soft tissues during the healing process after fractures, surgeries, or severe injuries. By restricting movement, casts provide stability to the affected area, enabling proper alignment and healing of bones, ligaments, and tendons. They are commonly applied to the limbs but can also be used for the trunk, neck, or other parts of the body in specific cases. Orthopedic casts come in various types and designs, tailored to the nature and severity of the injury, as well as the patient's needs. Advances in medical techniques have made casts more comfortable, effective, and versatile, allowing for both weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing options. Upper extremity casts Upper extremity casts are frequently utilized to immobilize the arm, wrist, or hand for the treatment of fractures, soft tissue injuries, or during post-surgical recovery. They offer stabil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Harry Blackstone Sr
Harry may refer to: Television * ''Harry'' (American TV series), 1987 comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (New Zealand TV series), 2013 crime drama starring Oscar Kightley * ''Harry'' (talk show), 2016 American daytime talk show hosted by Harry Connick Jr. People and fictional characters *Harry (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name, including **Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (born 1984) *Harry (surname), a list of people with the surname Other uses *"Harry", the tunnel used in the Stalag Luft III escape ("The Great Escape") of World War II * ''Harry'' (album), a 1969 album by Harry Nilsson *Harry (derogatory term) Harry is a Norwegian derogatory term used in slang, derived from the English name Harry. The best English translation may be "cheesy" or "tacky". '' Norsk ordbok'' defines "harry" as "tasteless, vulgar". The term "harry" was first used by upper ... ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |