Politics
Respectful Insolence
Category archives for Politics
Falling for one manufactroversy
Posted by Orac on November 20, 2010 The other day I had a bit of fun deconstructing a shockingly bad post by a blogger at the anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism named Dan Olmsted. In his post, he criticized the progressive movement for not “getting” autism. It was one of the silliest bits of whining I had ever seen, in essence…
Blaming failure to promote anti-vaccine views on “progressivism”
Posted by Orac on November 15, 2010 Every so often on this blog I get in the mood to take on a post on the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism. Over the three years of its existence, I’ve seen some truly bizarre posts, ranging from one blogger blithely discussing how he took his daughter to Costa Rica for stem cell quackery…
Willful ignorance as a campaign platform
Posted by Orac on November 2, 2010 It’s depressing to think that after today people like this may well be running the House: This year, willful ignorance is a campaign platform.
For whenever I start feeling sorry for myself
Posted by Orac on October 29, 2010 I know I kvetch from time to time about the currently dismal funding situation for biomedical research and worry about whether I’ll be able to keep my lab funded. However, every so often I’m reminded that cancer researchers by and large have it pretty good, at least compared to some academic disciplines:
A brief, diluted homeopathic interlude
Posted by Orac on October 28, 2010 I was out late last night due to the call of duty. By the time I got home, it was too late, and I was too beat to provide you with the heapin’ helpin’ of Insolence, Respectful or not-so-Respectful, that I usually do. Nor did I have time to draft a substantive reply to Dr.…
The Guatemala syphilis experiment, human subjects research abuses, and CAM
Posted by Orac on October 4, 2010 If there’s one thing that burns me about so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) clinical trials, it’s how unethical many of them are. This is particularly true for trials that test modalities that, on the basic science grounds alone, can be dismissed as so highly implausible and with such a low prior probability of success…
Gary Kompothecras and Charlie Crist tag-team an effort to support autism quackery in Florida
Posted by Orac on September 29, 2010 It’s grant crunch time, which almost always means that a lot of stuff happens that I don’t have time to write about and that the week after I submit it (i.e., next week) usually nothing interesting happens to write about and I’m left posting LOL Cats or something like that. Be that as it may,…
September 11, 2001: What we saw
Posted by Orac on September 11, 2010 Once again we come to another September 11. It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since that horrible day. On this day, I generally don’t do any new posts. Also, traditionally I do two things. First, I post the following video. This video was shot by Bob and Bri, who in 2001 lived…
CFI President Ronald Lindsay shows that he still doesn’t get it on the “Ground Zero mosque”
Posted by Orac on August 29, 2010 Yesterday, I expressed my displeasure over a truly idiotic press release by the Center for Inquiry over the “Ground Zero mosque” entitled The Center for Inquiry Urges That Ground Zero Be Kept Religion-Free. I happen to know that a lot of supporters of CFI were very unhappy about the press release as well, because apparently…
The Center For Inquiry on the “Ground Zero mosque”: Incompetent satire or abandonment of principles?
Posted by Orac on August 28, 2010 I hadn’t planned on blogging at all today, much about on this particular topic. As some of you may have noticed, I’m trying to cut back on the blog habit, particularly on the weekends. Gone are the days when I’d foolishly try to emulate P.Z. Myers and have several posts up in a day; lately…
Banned from HuffPo: Yet another reason why a “science section” at HuffPo is a sick joke
Posted by Orac on July 31, 2010 Two days ago, I posted my utter contempt for the idea of a science section in that cesspit of pseudsocience, New Age woo, and quackery, The Huffington Post. Part of the reason for my scoffing at the very idea that a science section in HuffPo would not rapidly degenerate into yet another outlet for more…
The Texas Medical Board finally gets off its tuchas and acts against Dr. Rolando Arafiles, Jr.
Posted by Orac on July 20, 2010 There’s one thing I like to emphasize to people who complain that this blog exists only to “bash ‘alternative’ medicine,” and that’s that it doesn’t. This blog exists, besides to champion science and critical thinking (and, of course, to feed my ravenous ego), in order to champion medicine based on science against all manner of…
“Health fascism” in Australia? The anti-vaccine loons think so
Posted by Orac on July 12, 2010 Although The Amazing Meeting is now over, my vacation is not, at least not yet. My wife and I decided to take an extra couple of days off before winging our way home tomorrow. Originally I had planned on posting “reruns” for a couple of days, but something popped up that I felt obligated to…
How engaged should scientists be in policy?
Posted by Orac on June 28, 2010 I really hate this. I really hate having to take a friend to task, but he leaves me little choice. You see, I actually like Chris Mooney. Back in the day, I even even hoisted a pint with him at the Toledo Lounge in D.C., round about the time of the commencement of the whole…
When BP spills a cup of coffee
Posted by Orac on June 10, 2010 Sadly, this video rings all too true:
Elie Wiesel: Carve out an exception to free speech for Holocaust denial
Posted by Orac on June 3, 2010 It occurs to me that I haven’t written about this topic in quite a while, but a recent event makes me think that maybe now’s the time to revisit this topic. I’m referring to Holocaust denial. Newer readers may not know that part of what got me involved in online discussions back in the late…
Fun with anti-vaccine petitions: The Chicago Principles on Vaccination Choice
Posted by Orac on May 26, 2010 I love it when cranks write petitions. They’re hilarious. Usually, they’re oh-so-serious and ominous, sprinkled with unintentionally, un-self-aware bits of pure comic gold. For example, check out this “petition” being circulated by the anti-vaccine activists, called The Chicago Principles on Vaccination Choice:
The “American Rally for Personal [Antivaccine] Rights” metastasizes
Posted by Orac on May 25, 2010 It figures. I’ve written a couple of times about a rally to be held tomorrow in Grant Park that would be hilarious were it not an indication of the threat to public health that the anti-vaccine movement represents. Actually, it is to some extent hilarious, mainly due to the anti-vaccine Poe-worthy “music” that will be…
Andrew Wakefield: Struck off!
Posted by Orac on May 24, 2010 It’s been a long time comin’ It’s goin’ to be a Long Time Gone. And it appears to be a long, appears to be a long, appears to be a long time, yes, a long, long, long ,long time before the dawn. – from “Long Time Gone” by Crosby, Stills & Nash Oh, happy day!…
A confluence of the anti-vaccine and “health freedom” movements at AutismOne in Chicago
Posted by Orac on May 13, 2010 One of the biggest examples of either self-delusion or lying that emanates from the anti-vaccine movement is the oh-so-pious and indignant denials that inevitably follow from its members and leaders whenever someone like me has the temerity to point out that they are, in fact, anti-vaccine. The disingenuously angry denials usually take a form something…
Disingenuous responses to straightforward questions
Posted by Orac on May 11, 2010 In yesterday’s post, in which I discussed the President’s Cancer Panel report on environmental toxins and cancer, I criticized one of the reactions to it, specifically that of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), even referencing a truly hilarious Daily Show clip in which Jeff Stier, Associate Director of ACSH didn’t exactly come…
Nominate your very own American loon!
Posted by Orac on May 10, 2010 Now here’s a project of which I entirely approve: Its an Encyclopedia of American Loons. It’s up to seven as of this writing, including Mike Adams (of course!), who is characterized as “Complete loon, flamingly stupid, extremely paranoid, a zealot and a fraud; his influence is probably limited but given just a small base of…
The President’s Cancer Panel steps into it
Posted by Orac on May 10, 2010 I’m a bit of an odd bird in the world of cancer. No, it’s not because I run a snarky skeptical blog that routinely deconstructs the nonsense that alt-med practitioners sprew far and wide, nor is it because I’ve developed a middling level of popularity that shocks me from time to time. Nor is it…
The British Chiropractic Association throws in the towel in the Simon Singh case
Posted by Orac on April 15, 2010 Today is a great day. Today, British science writer Simon Singh accomplished something I would never have believed possible, given British libel laws and a very bad ruling by Sir David Eady, the presiding judge, a ruling characterized as astonishingly illiberal. Despite the long odds, Singh appealed the ruling and actually won. As a result,…
Beware, North Carolina. Beware. Dr. Rashid Buttar is free to practice medicine.
Posted by Orac on April 7, 2010 Beware, North Carolina. Beware. Your law has become quack-friendly to the point where doctors can do almost anything. Why, you may reasonably wonder, am I saying this? The answer is what appears to be the end of a long and painful story of cancer quackery and anti-vaccine celebrity that has tainted North Carolina for years…