Tangled Bank XXVIII

Tangled Bank XXVIII has been posted by the Mad House Madman, and it's another fine sampling of the best of the science blogosphere. And, damn if he didn't come up with a format that I should have thought of, that of alties:

We wanted so badly to be original that we decided to highlight, for the first time in Tangled Bank history, some of the more questionable practices of medicine. We therefore reached out ot the homeopaths and the herbalists for submissions. Quickly, we learned how to swindle people's hard earned money ourselves and developed our own Mad House line of products. If you would like to purchase any please email me at I’m_a_sucker@Madhouse.com.

Hey, wait a minute! Debunking quacks and dubious alt-med is my territory! (OK, it's also the territory of Peter, Anne, Paul, Skeptico, and others, and I know I've gotten derailed a bit dealing with "intelligent design" pseudoscientists during the last couple of weeks. Don't worry, though, the alt-med stuff is coming again next week.) And, worse, the Mad House Madman is funny about it. Now I remember why I stole his idea for an interesting and unusal format to do Grand Rounds when I hosted my first blog carnival way back in February. Damn. If I had known the Madman's intent, I would have submitted this article instead of the article about the risks and benefits of phase I oncology trials that I did submit.

As was the case with the Canadian Cynic's take on one of ID's sillier arguments (also in Tangled Bank), I can only stand back in envy, wishing I had thought of it first.

But it's all OK. Madhouse Madman is a fellow medblogger (although, now that I think of it, I'm probably actually some sort of bizarre hybrid of a medblogger and science blogger crossed with a history blogger and skeptical blogger--in other words, Frankenblogger!). So please, show the Madman some love and head on over to Chronicles of a Medical Mad House to check it out.

Also, don't forget, in two weeks, Tangled Bank XXIX will be hosted by Organic Matter.