Here is the second in a series of links to essential classic Respectful Insolence from Orac's old blog. In a continuing series of posts, for the benefit of new readers (and a trip down memory lane for old readers), I now present: The Galileo Gambit What is a theory? Breast cancer "dormancy" Public speaking "Short scientific talks for dummies" I guess this is what passes for creationist "humor" 80 years later, nothing has changed Get me a barf bag! The Virgin Mary appears A field guide to biomedical meeting creatures, part 1: Any questions? (Also see part 2: Poster time!) Professor Rubinstein…

Grand Rounds, vol. 2, no. 21 has been posted at Intueri. The last time Maria hosted Grand Rounds, she envisioned it as a menu in a restaurant, which, while creative, was mildly disgusting. This time, she wants to help you make your Valentine's Day love connection.

*With apologies to Sparks. You'd think that a meeting of surgeons in such a beautiful and sunny city as San Diego would be one big party. Well, it was to some extent outside of the meeting, but the meeting itself was a bit of a drag. Academic surgeons are not a happy lot these days, and gathering a few hundred of them in one place at the combined meeting of the American Association of Surgery and the Society of University Surgeons provided an outlet for that unhappiness. To give you an idea of the mood among academic surgeons these days, you have only to look at the presidential addresses of…

Orac is disturbed. He had entered the ScienceBlogs network expecting rapid integration into its continuum, allowing him the communing with other science-loving beings that he craved. But it had not happened. Something was wrong. The feed through which Orac's insolence was to flow to the world was only partially working. What was going on? Orac computed. Multicolored lights pulsated. Then Orac had the answer. His posts were not appearing on the main ScienceBlogs page, nor had his feed been integrated into the main aggregated ScienceBlogs feed. His insolence, respectful and not-so-respectful,…

As promised, here is the first list of links of "classic insolence" from the old blog. For new readers, this is a place to start as far as my writings about quackery and dubious alternative medicine: What is an "altie"? Understanding alternative medicine "testimonials" for cancer cures Battling quackery in conventional medicine How can intelligent people use alternative medicine? The Orange Man How not to win friends and influence people Polio returns, thanks to anti-vaccination zealots Antivaccination rhetoric running rampant on the Huffington Post (Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6)…

The day has finally arrived. The big changes hinted at and then announced have finally come to pass. Orac has finally rebooted and plugged his (its?) essence into ScienceBlogs.com. It almost didn't come to pass, thanks to a certain overreaction by my medical school. It also didn't help that, after an unbelievably mild January in the New York area, the one time that winter would finally reassert itself would, by sheer bad luck, fall on the very day that I was scheduled to fly home from a surgical meeting in San Diego. One plane cancellation and dire speculation about the weather did produce a…