tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-95665342011-09-05T23:52:14.708-04:00Respectful Insolence is a repository for the ramblings of the aforementioned pseudonymous surgeon/scientist concerning medicine and quackery, science and pseudoscience, history and pseudohistory, politics, and anything else that interests him (or pushes his buttons). Orac's motto: "A statement of fact cannot be insolent." (OK, maybe it can be just a <i>little</i> bit insolent.)Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comBlogger10021100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-6806639333211178282009-01-11T10:15:00.000-05:002009-01-11T10:15:00.430-05:00

Yes, everyone, ScienceBlogs is back up and running. That means Respectful Insolence at ScienceBlogs is up and running again, too. Consequently, I'm disabling comments again on this blog and putting it back into mothballs as an archive site. Orac's home will be once again at Respectful Insolence at ScienceBlogs. It was fun resurrecting the old blog for a couple of days, but it's time to go back to

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-34216549411773045362009-01-10T09:50:00.003-05:002009-01-10T09:50:00.827-05:00

I don't watch Private Practice. I didn't like Grey's Anatomy, which, every time I caught part of it, struck me as the cheesiest sort of medical soap opera, a General Hospital transplanted to prime time. Given that Private Practice is a spinoff of Grey's Anatomy, I never saw any reason whatsoever to watch. However, on Thursday night an episode aired that royally pissed off the antivaccine

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-63553374431616089822009-01-09T12:00:00.003-05:002009-01-09T18:03:49.229-05:00

...but only temporarily!As you may have heard, our benevolent leaders at ScienceBlogs are finally doing a major upgrade of our blog publishing software. That's the good news. I'm hoping the back end is much easier to use and more responsive. The bad news is that the whole ScienceBlogs site is going to locked down. It will still be there. You can still read it and browse every scintillating post,

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1141396064200618832006-03-03T07:23:00.000-05:002006-03-03T09:28:26.076-05:00

This blog has moved to:http://scienceblogs.com/insolence.Because this blog is now mothballed and is only being maintained as an archive site for the first incarnation of Respectful Insolence (not to mention because a comment spam problem has developed here), over the next few days I will be going through posts and turning off all commenting.If you wish to comment, please go to the new site.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1140546429736921192006-02-21T13:23:00.000-05:002006-02-21T13:27:09.743-05:00

Finally!Even though I normally try not to blog from work, I have to take a moment while I'm eating lunch to announce this: Previous technical problems with the new blog that prevented my posts and your comments from showing up on this blog have now been resolved. Orac is back online. Everything appears to be working as it should, and you should be able to comment over there again. Normal

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1140531228203501512006-02-21T07:12:00.000-05:002006-02-21T09:13:48.526-05:00

Go here. The Photoshopped picture and caption are priceless.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1140495020774659622006-02-21T00:01:00.000-05:002006-02-21T13:14:02.593-05:00

[NOTE: My technical problems at the new blog continue. I'm assured the techies are working on fixing them, but, although my posts show up in the feed, they do not show up on my blog. In essence, I cannot post, and comments, although saved, do not show up. Until the techies get this problem fixed, I'm posting here at the old blog.]Well, that was fast.The trial took less than a day. David Irving,

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1140411419843564702006-02-20T00:02:00.000-05:002006-02-20T20:25:38.473-05:00

[NOTE: This is being posted here because my new blog is currently having technical difficulties that prevent my posting on it. Once the technical problems have been fixed (hopefully tomorrow), I will repost this over there. I wondered if this blog would have any further use, and unfortunately I found out sooner than I expected that it would.]Well, today's the day. After all the waiting, it's

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1140358775470600792006-02-19T09:16:00.000-05:002006-02-21T00:57:02.733-05:00

If anyone sees this...My new ScienceBlogs blog is screwed up. Movable Type won't let me publish or rebuild the blog. It lets me get into the control panel and even lets me see my posts and your comments, but despite their showing up as "published," they do not show up on the blog. Attempts to rebuild the blog time out, as do any attempts to republish the posts and comments in question.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139800004132545722006-02-13T07:38:00.000-05:002006-02-15T20:38:41.776-05:00

Well, it's finally come. Today is the day to say goodbye.No, not goodbye to you, my readers, but goodbye to Blogspot and this Blogger blog. In a way, this is a bit bittersweet, but then over the weekend an altie comment spammer unleashed the worst spam attack Respectful Insolence has ever weathered, necessitating my deleting a whole slew of comment spam.It's time to go.So, everyone, please set

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139581251456697742006-02-10T09:14:00.000-05:002006-02-10T09:20:51.463-05:00

This will be my second to last post here at the present blog. As announced before, on Monday this blog will be moving over to ScienceBlogs. It's been an eventful 14 months here, but it's time to shake things up. Not all change is bad, and I think this change will be good in at least a couple of ways. First, it will bring the insolence to a potentially much bigger audience, and, second, it will

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139580840602173882006-02-10T09:08:00.000-05:002006-02-10T09:14:27.600-05:00

Time flies. Not only is my move to ScienceBlogs imminent, but the next Skeptics' Circle is fast approaching. It's scheduled to be posted on Thursday, February 16 at Unused and Probably Unusable. The deadline is 8 PM EST on February 15, and the call for submissions is here. Let's make this one in honor of the Amazing Randi, who is presently recovering from heart surgery.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139499832495229782006-02-09T10:39:00.000-05:002006-02-09T10:43:52.750-05:00

Normally, this would be a topic that I'd take on full tilt. Fortunately, Abel Pharmboy explains the recent trial showing no benefit from saw palmetto in prostate hypertrophy. He also brings up a complaint that I've made about the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, mainly, its lack of scientific rigor and the poor quality of the grants it funds:Anyone associated with drug

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139497197381754972006-02-09T09:47:00.000-05:002006-02-09T10:20:49.176-05:00

Here's a good idea.From all the controversy over the attempt by fundamentalists to block the teaching of evolution and get the teaching of intelligent design creationism in public school science classes, it's easy to forget that there are a lot of Christians out there, even very conservative ones, who rightly don't see a threat to their faith from the teaching of evolution. In the Clergy Letter

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139496336817089662006-02-09T09:37:00.000-05:002006-02-09T10:07:03.273-05:00

I didn't have time to write anything of my own last night; so let me direct you to Andrew Mathis' commentary on an editorial that got his dander up:You state that "Islam is compatible with modern secular society." I would counter that, at least in its fundamentalist form, it is not. Nor is any religion, but I will explain that shortly. The problem with Islam in secular societies is that, like

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139367335897420022006-02-08T08:37:00.000-05:002006-02-09T10:05:57.400-05:00

This is just too bizarre for me not to mention it, meeting or no meeting (you didn't think I could ignore this, did you?):TEHRAN, Iran - A prominent Iranian newspaper said Tuesday it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.Hamshahri, one

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139366443107959712006-02-08T08:32:00.000-05:002006-02-08T08:38:11.366-05:00

I made it to the meeting. I hate transcontinental flights, but this one wasn't too bad. Because I've been busy putting the final touches on a talk I have to give, I only have time for a couple of short takes. First, there's this spot-on article addressing the controversy over the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed:In this jihad over humor, tolerance is disdained by people who demand it of others.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139367570939128802006-02-07T23:25:00.000-05:002006-02-07T23:28:25.736-05:00

Even at my meeting, I couldn't help but mention this. For those who might not know yet:James Randi underwent bypass surgery last Thursday. He is currently in stable condition. He is receiving excellent care, but will need quiet time to recover. We will release more information as it becomes available, and we ask everyone to please respect the family’s wishes for privacy at this time.For those who

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139278514829507352006-02-07T06:12:00.000-05:002006-02-07T06:09:55.840-05:00

Grand Rounds, vol. 2, no. 20 has been posted at Science and Politics. Never let it be said I don't point my readers to good reading while I'm away. Bora has gathered a veritable cornucopia of the best medblogging from the last week.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139278243929057342006-02-07T06:09:00.000-05:002006-02-07T06:08:37.700-05:00

A couple of quick announcements:As of this morning, I'm out of town for a surgical meeting for a few days. I'll probably keep posting, but not as regularly as usual. Also, I have no idea whether or not I'll have time to write anything that long. As always when I go to a meeting, it depends upon whether or not I'm bored when the meeting isn't actually going on.Mainly because I'm going to be away

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139280450135685922006-02-06T21:49:00.000-05:002006-02-07T06:19:09.776-05:00

From ScienceNOW:In stark contrast to his initiative for physical sciences [ScienceNOW, 1 February and 3 February], President Bush today proposed a budget freeze for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2007, holding its funding steady at $28.6 billion. The proposal, part of the President's overall budget request to Congress, is drawing concern and even outrage from biomedical research

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139183629918349912006-02-06T06:44:00.000-05:002006-02-06T08:30:04.886-05:00

Advocates who are convinced of a link between the mercury in thimerosal used in vaccines as a preservative and autism often point to data derived from the U. S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) as "evidence" that vaccines cause autism. For example, Mark and David Geier, the father-son team of Don Quixotes of the thimerosal/autism movement, have made a veritable career of

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139182701596021672006-02-06T00:03:00.000-05:002006-02-05T23:34:52.936-05:00

There are worse things than being included as an enzyme in a chart on the Metabolism of Evolution Information in the Blogosphere. Even though I used to think that enzymology was a bit on the dull side, whereas molecular biology was way more cool, over time I've come to appreciate what marvelous molecular catalysts enzymes are. At least this chart is not as complicated as the biochemical charts I

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139190572327999082006-02-06T00:02:00.000-05:002006-02-06T10:08:38.996-05:00

I'm not normally a big fan of Christopher Hitchens, but in discussing the recent crazed reaction of Muslim fundamentalists to some fairly mild cartoons lampooning Mohammed in Denmark he hits the nail right on the head for the most part:Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139067858194358302006-02-04T10:43:00.000-05:002006-02-04T10:46:08.106-05:00

This is just hilarious: Cthulu rising done in Legos. (Via Boing Boing.)

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139064776152785902006-02-04T09:44:00.000-05:002006-02-04T09:52:56.160-05:00

It looks like the international attention brought to the alternative medicine clinic where Coretta Scott King died has nudged the Mexican government to act:MEXICO CITY, Feb. 3 — Mexican health officials on Thursday night shut down an alternative medicine clinic where Coretta Scott King died this week, saying the doctors there were using unproven treatments and were never licensed to run a

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139064226901434622006-02-04T09:37:00.000-05:002006-02-04T09:43:46.910-05:00

While celebrating his first blogiversary, Skeptico took some time out to skewer both friend and foe alike, including your friendly neighborhood arrogant computer. Only one thing: He's short at least two sets of parentheses to get the true flavor of my writing...May your second year be as great as your first, although, as much as I love it when you fisk Deepak Chopra, it is rather odd that your

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139063649201303242006-02-04T09:27:00.000-05:002006-02-04T11:52:03.753-05:00

If you were trying to get to Respectful Insolence last night and couldn't, this is why. Blogspot appeared to be down for about three hours last night, as you can see from the graph. I made a cursory check last night, and it appeared that every Blogspot blog was down. Is it my imagination or selective memory, or Blogspot outages becoming more frequent?In any case, I can't wait to make the move to

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1139067036010806692006-02-04T09:10:00.000-05:002006-02-04T10:30:36.330-05:00

A while ago, James (a.k.a. Dad of Cameron), the father of an autistic boy who also has a blog Autism Street, informed me of a clinical trial going on at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine supposedly studying chelation therapy for autism. The design of the study seemed fishy to me, as did the question of whether it had been approved by an approved Institutional Review Board for the

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138939799781858552006-02-03T07:07:00.000-05:002006-02-03T07:04:46.790-05:00

Here's the stupidest lawsuit I've heard of in a long time:SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- A Louisiana man claims in a lawsuit that Apple's iPod music player can cause hearing loss in people who use it.Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels,

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138935081635010602006-02-03T07:01:00.000-05:002006-02-04T11:26:10.256-05:00

The whole blogosphere has been abuzz about the uproar caused by the publication of cartoons by a Danish newspaper portraying the Prophet Mohammed in what many Muslims considered to be offensive and sacrilegious. Indeed, the protest has escalated to violence, with Palestinian gunmen shutting down the offices of the European Union in Gaza demanding an apology from French, Norwegian, and German

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138846224547991602006-02-02T06:54:00.000-05:002006-02-02T06:58:17.476-05:00

As hard as it is to believe, two weeks have already flown by, and it's time for the Twenty-seventh Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. This is a particularly propitious time, as it's the very first Skeptics' Circle of its second year of existence. Not only that, this edition of the Circle marks the point where I have been its organizer longer than its founder, St. Nate.I can think of few bloggers as

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138762762196151042006-02-02T06:50:00.000-05:002006-02-02T13:25:24.333-05:00

It had to happen sooner or later. I'm only surprised that it's taken so long.What is it?Well, finally, Orac has attracted a Holoaust denier in the comments of his last post on David Irving, Holocaust denier extraordinaire (spelling errors not corrected):There is much that can be said about Irving, I certainly agree his statement "more people were killed in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car in

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138842709947853372006-02-01T20:09:00.000-05:002006-03-03T08:00:50.266-05:00

It's odd, but very quickly after I wrote about this case, it's been reported that there's a win for the good guys:A holistic health practitioner who was on trial after a patient died made a surprise guilty plea Wednesday morning after new evidence was discovered, the Jefferson County district attorney's office said.When confronted with the new evidence, Brian Edward O'Connell, 37, pleaded guilty

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138798339200131952006-02-01T07:45:00.000-05:002006-02-01T08:09:16.906-05:00

Today, Tangled Bank #46 has been posted at Adventures in Science and Ethics, and The History Carnival XXIV has been posted at The Elfin Ethicist.A day late, I realize that I forgot to plug Grand Rounds, vol. 2, no. 19 at Barbados Butterfly.Lastly, the latest Skeptics' Circle is set to land at A Photon in the Darkness tomorrow. If you haven't done so yet, you have until this evening to get your

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138764445585205382006-02-01T07:44:00.000-05:002006-02-10T19:52:59.886-05:00

Here's something I wish there was more of, the criminal prosecution of quacks when their quackery results in the death of a patient:A man who called himself a naturopathic doctor is scheduled to stand trial for the death of one of his patients starting Tuesday in Jefferson County District Court in Golden, Colo.Brian O'Connell, 37, was charged with manslaughter after he unsuccessfully treated Sean

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138808683922696932006-02-01T07:27:00.000-05:002006-02-01T12:24:49.013-05:00

As most people who have been following the news know, Coretta Scott King died early yesterday morning. What was not widely reported until last night is that she died seeking alternative therapies for her advanced ovarian cancer at a Mexican clinic, the Santa Monica Health Institute in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, south of San Diego:ATLANTA - Coretta Scott King, who worked to keep her husband's dream

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138334446945499132006-01-31T06:36:00.000-05:002006-01-31T10:43:44.006-05:00

I've been dropping vague and ominous-sounding hints about this for the last couple of weeks, but it's more or less official now: Big changes are coming to Respectful Insolence. Don't worry; they're not bad changes. Quite the contrary, in fact, I'm hoping they'll be great changes.It began back in November, when Christopher Mims of Seed Magazine asked me if I would be interested in joining a new

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138676801716474932006-01-30T22:12:00.000-05:002006-02-28T22:18:48.480-05:00

Recently, I took Dr. Mary Jean Brown, Chief of the Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch of the Centers for Disease Control to task for some ill-considered and ill-advised comments about the death by chelation therapy of a five year old autistic boy named Abubakar Tariq Nadama in August. I wasn't the only health care professional who thought her remarks to be pretty off base. Indeed, Dr. Kimball

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com123tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137374335567604162006-01-30T06:34:00.000-05:002006-01-30T11:26:20.453-05:00

I've been looking critically at various claims of alternative medicine practitioners and outright quacks for a while now. I thought I had heard everything. I didn't think there was a claim that I could come across that was so outrageous, so obviously and ridiculously bogus, that it would still have the power to surprise or shock me.Then I came across "touchless" chiropractic

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138588961377735662006-01-30T00:02:00.000-05:002006-02-10T19:58:30.606-05:00

After having plugged a good skeptical blog over the weekend (whose proprietor has now, by the way, agreed to host the Skeptics' Circle in May), I've now found yet another one. This one's called Unintelligent Design, and the blogger, Clark, introduces himself thusly:I am a skeptic. In fact I don't believe in anything without cold hard facts. And to be honest It makes me mad that I am forced to

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138592921690062362006-01-30T00:01:00.000-05:002006-01-30T00:02:21.076-05:00

I don't often do this, but at the request of a reader of mine who happens to have reason to be intimately familiar with this issue I am posting this plea:It seems that the restaurant industry is leading to fight to keep America inaccessible to people in wheelchairs. There was a problem in Kansas (where else?) last year that was shot down.These businesses have had nearly 15 years to make the small

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138552550407057802006-01-29T11:36:00.000-05:002006-01-29T11:36:27.926-05:00

I hadn't been planning on posting anything at all today; I usually like to take at least one day off a week from posting (and in the future may stop posting anything on the weekends at all).Then I was made aware of this:Have you started tilting your head sideways to smile? When you check your e-mail and it says "No new messages", do you immediately check again? Do you dream in HTML? You could be

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138414328566341882006-01-28T08:11:00.000-05:002006-01-28T08:11:13.450-05:00

Since I'm plugging skepticism today, I should take this time to remind everyone that on Thursday Prometheus is hosting the 26th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle at A Photon in the Darkness, but he's not happy. At least not yet. Here it is, the weekend before he's scheduled to host, and he still needs more skepticism. After all, a guy who can write something like A Field Guide to Quackery and

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138455239254168332006-01-28T08:09:00.000-05:002006-01-28T09:04:37.400-05:00

Inspired by the cybersquatting of J. B. Handley a couple of months ago, I finally got off my behind and registered the domain name respectfulinsolence.net. No, I never got back oracknows.com (J. B. hates me too much ever to do the right thing in that respect, and yes, oracknows.com still redirects traffic to a Site I Will Not Name.) It doesn't much matter anyway. I had been planning on phasing

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138411891506936342006-01-28T08:07:00.000-05:002006-01-28T08:08:16.070-05:00

I love it when Skeptico fisks New Ager Supreme Deepak Chopra and his pseudoscientific appeal to other ways of knowing. My favorite part is where he rebuts Chopra's claim about "subtle bodies" that "whatever is invisible has little standing in a materialistic culture where reality is defined by science":Yes, science has no time for invisible things like radio waves, atoms, MRIs etc. – all things

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138334514963453272006-01-28T08:04:00.000-05:002006-01-28T08:04:43.933-05:00

I'd just like to take this opportunity to send a birthday shoutout to my Mom. Here's hoping you have a great day and many more like it!I know you're reading...

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138413508408476932006-01-27T20:57:00.000-05:002006-01-27T20:58:28.580-05:00

I normally don't watch The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oh, I occasionally catch part of it when my wife watches it, as it's on at 7 PM on one station in our market, but I don't generally watch it. But I really wish I had seen this episode here, when Oprah slapped down dissembling "memoirist" James Frey for his making up a large part of his supposed memoir A Million Little Pieces and lambasting his

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138246930056657282006-01-27T06:21:00.000-05:002006-01-27T06:25:51.803-05:00

Today, the 61st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most notorious of Nazi camps, by the Red Army, is also Holocaust Remembrance Day in the U.K. The theme this year is the celebration of the courage of rescuers who helped the persecuted:The stories of the rescuers show everyone how even small actions can make a difference to the persecuted and hunted. It also highlights the dangers of

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138332165637241102006-01-27T00:01:00.000-05:002006-02-24T18:46:15.366-05:00

I hadn't gotten around to this, but today seems an appropriate day to point to an article in Der Spiegel in which David Irving, now in prison for Holocaust denial in Austria, was interviewed. Some choice excerpts follow.On why David Irving went to Austria, even though he knew there was a warrant for his arrest there:Before leaving London for Austria, he left behind 60 blank checks and packed

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1133933930286852292006-01-26T06:50:00.000-05:002006-01-26T15:01:36.233-05:00

[NOTE: This story is loosely based on a real patient encounter, but some details have been changed, and there's no way for the reader to know when the event upon which the story is based actually happened.]"Doctor?"I paused. I had been on my way out the door of the examining room, having completed the visit. I turned around again. "Yes." I said. Maybe I had turned around too soon after having

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138153873517320882006-01-25T07:05:00.000-05:002006-01-25T13:30:42.456-05:00

I hate spammers.On the scale of Internet scumbags, spammers rank just one notch above pedophiles (barely). When they're not busy flooding your e-mail In Box with ads for "herbal Viagra" or various pyramid schemes, they're cluttering up my blog with comment spam. Unfortunately, some spammers seem to have found a way to get around Blogger's Word Recognition feature. Normally, I just delete such

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138071199865553492006-01-24T09:14:00.000-05:002006-01-24T09:17:31.956-05:00

A Blogger outage earlier this morning during my usual posting time (between around 6 and 7 AM) prevented me from mentioning this before. (It also made this blog unreachable for an unknown period of time.) But I'm back now and taking a minute to post my weekly plug for Grand Rounds, Vol. 2, No. 18, which has been posted at Kevin, MD. Enjoy!

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1138067651407327742006-01-24T07:24:00.000-05:002006-02-16T10:49:09.720-05:00

I was made aware of a most interesting study today appearing in the journal Cancer, which is the official journal of the American Cancer Society. However, I wasn't made aware of it through the journal itself, but rather through a very deceptive misrepresentation of the article. The title alone got my attention: 'Miracle' cures shown to work. It begins:Doctors have found statistical evidence that

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137983367294124992006-01-23T06:41:00.000-05:002006-02-10T13:55:58.883-05:00

If you're a blogger, don't you hate it when a commenter either says something better than you did or makes a point that you should have made in a post?So do I.However, I believe in giving props to commenters who manage to one-up Orac, so much so that I even preempted my intended post for today (a rare straight medblog-style post about a rather disquieting patient encounter I had a while back--so

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137990405821858272006-01-23T06:36:00.000-05:002006-01-23T07:48:07.826-05:00

In anticipation, I've found 24 Rules of the 24 Universe. Several examples lifted from the list:Given the chance to kill Jack Bauer, an evil-doer will not do so.Given the chance to kill another major ‘good’ character, there’s a 50/50 chance an evil-doer will do so.Given the chance to kill any other ‘good’ character, an evil-doer will do so.When guarding an exit door, police officers will always

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137988937566876002006-01-23T06:29:00.000-05:002006-01-23T07:45:15.516-05:00

I'm probably going to end up regretting posting this, but the above picture irritated me.No, it didn't irritate me because the woman is demonstrating in support of abortion rights. Rather, the photo offended my sense of skepticism and critical thinking. It shouldn't matter what one's position is in the abortion debate to see that, on a logical basis alone, the above body painting, seen at one of

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137877631352565642006-01-21T16:02:00.000-05:002006-01-21T17:09:05.016-05:00

Ben Macintyre wrote an excellent opinion piece for the Times that says more or less exactly what I've been saying all along about Austria's imprisonment of David Irving for Holocaust denial:Irving’s opinions are indefensible; his right to hold them, however, must be defended. For reasons of both principle and expediency, he should go free. Freedom of speech includes the right to be hopelessly,

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137855144244753012006-01-21T11:46:00.000-05:002006-01-21T14:57:43.166-05:00

A reader who has the misfortune of using Internet Explorer got fed up with the way my new template looks on IE, with the right sidebar and/or the main panel being pushed down under the left panel. I hadn't been able to discover a fix, and the template looked fine in every other browser I had tried it on, including even the old Macintosh version of Internet Explorer (v. 5.2). I couldn't even

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137856060287707042006-01-21T11:05:00.000-05:002006-02-10T13:51:24.073-05:00

I know I'm a bit of a stickler, a curmudgeon, if you will, when it comes to medicine. Call me crazy, but I have this rather annoying tendency to want to see evidence-based research based on sound physiologic principles backed up by basic science and well-designed and well-executed clinical studies that show a treatment, drug, or remedy to be effective. When someone makes a claim for a drug, herb,

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137771711567204312006-01-20T06:49:00.000-05:002006-01-20T17:55:34.806-05:00

While I'm on the topic of amusing alt-med odds and ends, I've discovered that supporter of quackery and scammer extraordinaire Kevin Trudeau is going to be on ABC's 20/20 tonight at 10 PM. At least John Stossel is doing the interview, which might make it interesting. (Yes, I know that John Stossel likes to represent himself as a "skeptic" but tends to be rather credulous when it comes to the

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137465457805040582006-01-20T06:48:00.000-05:002006-02-10T13:57:09.733-05:00

This has to be the funniest "disclaimer" I have ever seen on an alternative medicine website:United States GovernmentWARNINGThe following health suggestions and opinions by Dr. Richard Schulze are based on his 20 years of clinical practice assisting thousands of patients to heal themselves.Warning: His knowledge and experience are not necessarily shared, nor have they been evaluated or approved

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137770595603724522006-01-20T06:38:00.000-05:002006-01-20T10:48:29.796-05:00

Today is the 64th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference; that is, the conference held at a mansion in the plush Wannsee district of Berlin, during which the first major discussion of the Final Solution occurred. The Wannsee Conference was a major turning point in the history of the Holocaust, when Nazi policy went from one of expulsion of Jews from the territories controlled by the Third Reich to

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137554287480699672006-01-19T10:51:00.000-05:002006-01-21T00:10:59.060-05:00

It's that time again. The Twenty-sixth Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted at Skeptic Rant, and Sean has done a great job gathering the best blogging devoted to skepticism and critical thinking. He's even gone so far as to create an über-cool Flash animation to lead the reader to the posts in the Circle, thus going above and beyond the call of duty as a host. (I wish I knew how to

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137643230188614892006-01-19T06:25:00.000-05:002006-01-20T09:44:00.036-05:00

I had planned on taking it easy, blog-wise, today, just posting my usual biweekly plug for the Skeptics' Circle and maybe a couple of very brief Instapundit-style link and comment posts that would take only a few minutes to bang out. However, unfortunately, sometimes stories pop up that demand comment, and, ever since I first found myself rebutting conspiracy theories about mercury and autism in

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137639176028941072006-01-18T21:51:00.000-05:002006-01-18T21:52:56.270-05:00

The latest Tangled Bank is out! Enjoy the best science blogging out there.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137584152795444842006-01-18T06:33:00.000-05:002006-01-19T16:14:22.826-05:00

How come I've never heard of this before? It's the 24 Drinking Game. A few examples of what you have to take a drink for:Jack says “You have got to trust me”, take 1 shot– if the emphasis is on “got”, i.e. “You have GOT to trust me”, take an extra shotJack doesn’t have time to explain, take 1 shotJack doesn’t have time for this, take 1 shotJack says “You’ve got to do it”, take 1 shot– if this is

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137551682098015292006-01-18T06:31:00.000-05:002006-01-19T18:56:43.013-05:00

I hadn't really wanted to mention this nutcase again for a while, but unfortunately he's like the Energizer Bunny of Holocaust denial. He just keeps going and going and going and goin. If theres's any doubt about it now that the President of Iran is a complete and total wingnut, this ought to put it to rest:Iran announced yesterday it would stage a conference to question the authenticity of the

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137466004698115452006-01-17T06:31:00.000-05:002006-01-17T06:31:37.190-05:00

Grand Rounds , vol. 2, no. 17 has been posted at GruntDoc. More great medblogging, as usual. Be sure to check it out.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137460828928356852006-01-17T06:29:00.000-05:002006-01-17T15:55:43.170-05:00

I tell ya, this is what I get for taking it easy yesterday. Our cancer center was closed for MLK Day; so I only went to work for a few hours to take care of some odds and ends without the distractions of incoming phone calls and miscellaneous other distractions that occur when everyone's there and working and instead came home early. Because my wife likes The Oprah Winfrey Show, it happened to be

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137467334143144542006-01-17T06:28:00.000-05:002006-01-17T15:55:14.280-05:00

On the one hand, Candidate for Governor of Minnesota Jonathan Sharkey certainly isn't Christian, which, on the surface, might appeal to folks like PZ. That is, until you actually look at this guy. My first thought is that this had to be a joke, but it seems to be real.In fact, Sharkey is very religious. It's just that his religion is Satanism. Sharkey also openly proclaims himself as "evil" and

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137429301899414072006-01-16T11:33:00.000-05:002006-01-16T12:28:01.356-05:00

Prometheus strikes again, this time with Part 2 of his series A Field Guide to Quackery and Pseudoscience. It's well worth checking out.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137377068929217192006-01-16T07:48:00.000-05:002006-01-16T11:08:26.376-05:00

During my usual weekly perusal of the New York Times, I was surprised to come across this rather perceptive article by Nicholas Wade in which he discusses the difference between "frontier" science and "textbook" science. No, I wasn't surprised because Nicholas Wade wrote a perceptive article, but rather because it was published in the New York Times. In it, he asks:How then can the fraudulent

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137429915810415662006-01-16T07:43:00.000-05:002006-01-16T12:27:24.053-05:00

As planned, I checked out the season premiere of 24 last night. So far, so good. In previous seasons, it sometimes took too much time to get the action going, but this year started out full throttle almost right away.As expected President Palmer was assassinated, but what wasn't expected was seeing Michelle Dessler get blown up by a car bomb (and Tony Almeida be critically wounded by the same

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137361298955581412006-01-15T16:40:00.000-05:002006-01-15T16:53:46.403-05:00

The History Carnival XXIII is up at robmacdougall.org. Lots of good stuff there. More stuff than I have time to read, even with not having to go to work tomorrow...

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137349160455785852006-01-15T13:19:00.000-05:002006-01-15T16:59:26.143-05:00

Anyone who was here last year at this time knows that I'm a 24 junkie. For those who aren't familiar with it, 24 is a show that follows a single 24-hour period in the life of an anti-terrorist agent, Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland). Each episode represents an hour of that day presented in "real time" (complete with the occasional ticking clock in the corner to remind the viewer what time

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137347819680898072006-01-15T12:54:00.000-05:002006-01-15T12:57:29.380-05:00

This one's for you, Hedwig: The (Un)-Official 2006 Hooters Calendar.(Via Boing Boing)

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137124303571599752006-01-14T10:03:00.000-05:002006-01-14T10:04:41.840-05:00

We're nearly two weeks into the new year, and things are settling down to normal. Those who remember what I said a month ago on my first blogiversary about my plans for the second year may have recognized that those plans have gotten a bit sidetracked. (For one thing, my posting activity this week has been more frequent and manic than it usually is. I don't really know why. It just was.)Next week

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137250759082595232006-01-14T09:59:00.000-05:002006-01-14T10:00:00.856-05:00

A couple of days ago, I pointed out that a neigbor of ours is still firing up his Christmas lights every night as though it were December.They're still up. The countdown continues.There were some negative reactions to my original post (which, by the way, was meant to be facetious). However, lest you think that I'm an incorrigible curmudgeon, my wife pointed out that I should inform you about some

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137125735995074892006-01-13T06:54:00.000-05:002006-01-13T10:43:04.046-05:00

Time's flying much faster than you might think. It's Friday the 13th, making it a perfectly appropriate date to point out that the next meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is fast approaching. It's the perfect forum to debunk superstitions (such as Friday the 13th), apply critical thinking to urban legends, and point out pseudoscience and quackery. So fire up your critical thinking and get your best

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137161732260602822006-01-13T06:52:00.000-05:002006-01-13T17:00:40.653-05:00

Pat Robertson, he of the "God struck Sharon down for 'dividing' His land" comments earlier this month, has apologized, sort of:The US TV evangelist Pat Robertson has apologised to the family of Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, for suggesting that his stroke was God's punishment for withdrawing from Gaza.In a letter to Mr Sharon's son, Omri, Mr Robertson said his remarks derived from his "

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1131908911002992072006-01-13T06:47:00.000-05:002006-01-13T16:56:21.923-05:00

I know, I know, I've been remiss. However, it just didn't seem right to post the now-traditional first-of-the-month post given what was going on around the 1st. So I held off.It's time to get back to normal. As a hint of what the theme of this year will be, I present:Yes, this year, EneMan will be traveling through time to participate in various historical events. Some of them will undoubtedly

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137106854503550122006-01-13T06:46:00.000-05:002006-01-13T07:40:29.983-05:00

A couple of days ago, I took a bit of issue with Kevin, MD for an off-handed remark he had made welcoming us academic physicians "to the real world" in response to an article about how demoralized and depressed young academicians have become due to the increasing encroachment of financial pressures and demands to generate more clinical income. I gently pointed out to him that we have been living

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137037936664372062006-01-12T22:49:00.000-05:002006-01-12T23:06:49.840-05:00

Every neighborhood has one, occasionally more than one. We have one too.Yes, it's the neighbor who won't take down his Christmas lights. Here it is, mid-January, and he hasn't taken down his lights and lawn decorations yet (and they aren't nearly as attractive as the ones pictured above--rather, they are quite tacky). It wouldn't be so bad if it was just laziness and if he left them turned off,

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137041030805527082006-01-12T07:27:00.000-05:002006-01-12T18:22:16.083-05:00

I was perusing some journals yesterday, including the most recent issue of Nature, when I came across a rather interesting news/discussion item that began thusly:Nostradamus we are not, but a safe prediction for 2006 is that initiatives promoting public engagement in science and technology policy-making will proliferate. There will, of course, be devils in the details, and critical assessments

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137037479338623412006-01-12T00:02:00.000-05:002006-01-12T10:14:03.576-05:00

I've written before about David Irving's arrest and impending trial for Holocaust denial in Austria and the free speech issues involved. I still think that, as odious as Irving's denial of the Holocaust and apologia for Hitler and the Nazi regime, Irving's arrest and imprisonment for what is in essence free speech is a travesty of justice. Even so, I couldn't help but chuckle when I came across

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1137035192394390442006-01-12T00:01:00.000-05:002006-01-12T10:01:46.083-05:00

More wacky pronouncements from fundamentalists, this time, a fundamentalist Muslim:An Egyptian cleric's controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars.According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Sharia (or Islamic law), "being completely

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136946076693603822006-01-11T07:29:00.000-05:002006-01-11T13:28:10.156-05:00

I sort of feel as though I was being picked on over the last couple of days, while I've been a bit preoccupied. No, not me personally, but academic physicians in general. Actually, it's a bit lonely being an academic physician with a laboratory and a practice blogging. I have yet to encounter another one, although there are plenty of doctors who blog, as any brief perusal of my right sidebar

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136783568761450842006-01-10T06:26:00.000-05:002006-01-10T18:43:24.180-05:00

Unfortunately, I was too busy to come up with any new material last night. (Remember the talk I have to give today? The PowerPoint file has ballooned even slightly higher than the 45 MB it was last night. I really must teach my postdoc how to produce smaller photo sizes.) Fortunately, there's this week's Grand Rounds over at Clinical Cases and Images to give you your medblogging fix in my

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136776497863929382006-01-09T07:31:00.000-05:002006-02-10T20:08:39.713-05:00

I was perusing the New York Times yesterday and trying to avoid working on a talk that I have to give on Tuesday (to give you an idea of why, of what a monster I've created thus far, the PowerPoint file is up to about 45 MB of image files of TIFF files of Western blots, graphs, and multicolored confocal microscopy photos, all of which is great in that it means that I have a lot of data to present

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136810583996391392006-01-09T07:29:00.000-05:002006-01-09T07:43:04.350-05:00

The Unabrewer is hosting RINO Sightings this week:For those not in the know, I am currently in China. Chinese products made for export generally perform better than the items they leave at home. This is the first, and probably last, RINO carnival I’ll be hosting. No, not because of the work involved. It’s quite fun. And no, not because of any conflicts with submitters. Everyone was quite

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136740105999692322006-01-08T12:06:00.000-05:002006-01-08T15:00:37.003-05:00

Somehow comment spammers for a site advertising products related to blood pressure devices and medications have managed to get through Blogger's word verification system for comments. Before that, yesterday it was a bunch of spams for a Pink Panther DVD collection. Just this morning, I deleted five comment spams that arrived just this morning since 6 AM, for a rate of about one per hour thus far.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136731695685224082006-01-08T09:48:00.000-05:002006-01-08T09:48:15.920-05:00

I normally don't post on Sunday that often anymore, but I couldn't let this one pass without a birthday shoutout to my youngest sister. Happy birthday!My sister happens to share a birthday with a couple of my favorite performers. First, as I pointed out last year, my favorite rock performer of all time, David Bowie (née David Jones) was born on this date in 1947, which means he's turning 59

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136657586242272582006-01-07T13:09:00.000-05:002006-01-07T13:48:48.790-05:00

Leave it up to The Commissar. After Pat Robertson's idiotic statements about God striking down Ariel Sharon because he was negotiating a peace deal with the Palestinians that might "divide" the Holy Land, he couldn't resist making up a map of the world as seen by Pat Robertson, complete with a list of some of Pat's loonier statements! (Click the image to be taken there.)

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136646866416895942006-01-07T10:11:00.000-05:002006-01-07T11:33:38.603-05:00

After a long absence for the holidays, Prometheus is back, with part one of his Field Guide To Quackery and Pseudoscience. An excerpt:The purpose of scientific jargon (and almost all “real” technical jargon) is to allow people familiar with the field to communicate ideas in an efficient manner. The purpose of pseudoscientific (or quackery) jargon is to obscure meaning and cover a lack of

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136512207307301342006-01-07T00:15:00.000-05:002006-01-07T10:53:22.360-05:00

Since rolling out the new template, I've gotten a lot of comments, with essentially a mixed verdict leaning more negative than positive. I've also noticed things that I liked at first about the template but now don't like as much, and I am starting to appreciate that the circuit board background may be too overpowering. So, if you see the template looking different seemingly at random over the

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136553633609112152006-01-06T07:01:00.000-05:002006-01-07T09:32:50.320-05:00

Here's an update on the story of Abubakar Tariq Nadama, the unfortunate 5 year old autistic boy who died while receiving chelation therapy in August. According to the Pittburgh Post-Gazette:A 5-year-old autistic boy who went into cardiac arrest in his doctor's office died as a result of the controversial chelation therapy he was receiving as a treatment for his autism.The manner of death of

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1131908435455129552006-01-06T06:47:00.000-05:002006-01-08T14:56:48.396-05:00

As you may know, I love music. I love it so much that I have over 1,000 CDs collected over the years (I've lost count), and over 10,000 tunes on my iPod and in my iTunes library. Consequently, as one might expect, I'm a bit of a music critic wannabe. Before blogging, there was no outlet for this tendency. After blogging (in fact, very soon after I started blogging), I couldn't stop myself. So, if

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136516607780750602006-01-06T06:38:00.000-05:002006-01-06T15:25:41.623-05:00

Yep, tonight at 10 PM, you know where I'll be, watching the best SF show on the air since Babylon 5 finished up and finding out how the final confrontation between Commander Adama and Admiral Helena Cain turns out.I can't wait.

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9566534.post-1136514563579514372006-01-06T00:01:00.000-05:002006-01-06T19:49:38.936-05:00

You know, if Pat Robertson didn't exist, skeptical bloggers would probably have to invent him. He provides such a wealth of utter lunacy and bizarre statements on such a regular basis as to provide blog fodder for a million skeptical bloggers. He's a veritable cornucopia of the worst illogic to be found in fundamentalists, whether it be his pronouncement that the citizens of Dover had just "voted

Orachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01370846202152605202noreply@blogger.com12