oracknows | September 27, 2006Yes, it's that time again! This time, the Skeptics' Circle comes to us by way of Sweden. In fact, it comes to us by way of a Swedish archeologist named Martin Rundkvist, and he's rounded up a fine collection of skeptical blogging that should serve as your antidote to the woo that so permeates the blogosphere, the Internet, and, yes, our society. So join Martin for the 44th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. It's appeared a few hours earlier than usual, but, then, Sweden is 6 hours ahead of my particular time zone.
Next up is The Inoculated Mind, and, given his taste in podcasts, I'm expecting a…
oracknows | September 27, 2006"It's just minor surgery."
How many times have surgeons said that to patients? How many times have you, as a patient heard that? How many times have I said that to patients? It's supposed to be reassuring, and most of the time it is.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as "minor" surgery if it's you at the wrong end of the knife. And, in fact, even "minor surgery can on rare occasions have truly bizarre and unexpected complications. I've been thinking of writing about perhaps the most memorable and strange complication of a "minor" procedure (in this case, a breast biopsy) that I've even…
oracknows | September 26, 2006First, it was HIV/AIDS "skeptic" Celia Farber referring to me as "low rent riff-raff." I was so honored by that particular accolade that I had a smile on my face the rest of the day after I discovered it.
Fortunately for me, that's not the end of the accolades.
Thanks to my posts about Dawn Winkler, the antivaccination activist who is running for Governor of Colorado, I've been mentioned on Whale.to as "the pharma moron"!
It's really good to know that my work here is not going unrewarded. I'll have to be careful, or I might get a swelled head. OK, as a surgeon, by definition I already have a…
oracknows | September 26, 2006
As a long time Led Zeppelin fan, I'm not sure whether I'm amused or appalled by this. Yes, it's 101 cover versions of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, including a reggae version by Dread Zeppelin. (Actually, I kind of like Dread Zeppelin. I even saw them in concert once in Cleveland back in the early 1990's. Great show. I mean, come on. How can you resist a Led Zeppelin cover band that's fronted by an Elvis impersonator? I know I can't.)
In any case, you can find reggae versions, banjo versions, backward versions, straight versions, symphonic versions, and more. I had no idea that Frank…
oracknows | September 26, 2006Via History News Network:
(Translation below the fold.)
Apparently, the above cartoon, Der Bonker, in which a disconsolate (and rappin'!) Hitler is portrayed sitting on the toilet complaining about Churchill, is causing an uproar in Germany:
A satirical cartoon about Hitler, where he sits on the toilet complaining about Churchill, is causing controversy in Germany.
Illustrator Walter Moers is famous for his comic books depicting the dictator as a frustrated little man who throws fits every time the Jews are mentioned. But with the release of the short film "Der Bonker", Germans seem to feel…
oracknows | September 25, 2006I wrote last week about the Tripoli Six, six health care workers who were jailed by Libya on trumped up charges of infecting patients at a hospital they worked at with HIV. Since then, many other have chimed in, and the most recent count of blog posts about this case is well over 100. According to Nature, this attention is starting to have an effect:
Bloggers have rallied around a call from a humanitarian lawyers' organization for greater international pressure to free six medical workers who risk execution by firing squad in Libya on charges of deliberately infecting over 400 children with…
oracknows | September 25, 2006It's coming fast.
In fact, it's almost here.
Yes, the Skeptics' Circle, the blog carnival for afficianados of skepticism, science, and critical thinking, is due to appear at Salto Sobrius on Thursday, September 28. That means you only have two days to get your best skeptical blogging together to submit to Martin if you want to be included in this week's festivities. Guidelines can be found here.
oracknows | September 25, 2006After the three posts that I recently did about vaccination have garnered well over 250 comments between the three of them (and still counting), I thought it might be time to switch topics. As important as they are, I don't want this blog to become all vaccines all the time. (After all, look what happened to the blog SupportVaccination.org. It's a long story that I'll have to tell you sometime; but suffice it to say that the blog no longer exists.) Quite frankly, seeing the same old fallacies being repeated over and over again by antivaxers does get tiresome after a while. After all, how many…
oracknows | September 24, 2006Thanks to Norm, I recently found out that Richard Dawkins now has a web page (the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science). Certainly, any self-respecting skeptic would have to add that one to his sidebar, which I've now done. Even though I don't always agree with the vociferousness of some of Dawkin's views, he is vigorous defender of science and critical thinking. (I also like where he has placed Ann Coulter on his website.) Thanks to the generosity of our Seed overlords in using their contacts with the book industry, I was greeted upon my return from North Carolina with a nice…
oracknows | September 24, 2006Here's a belated notice that the Carnival of Bad History #9 has been posted at World History Blog.
Enjoy!
oracknows | September 24, 2006One of the things that I remember most about my A.P. English course in high school is the time that we all read Aristophane's Lysistrata. This play, as you may or may not remember, is a comedy taking place during the Peloponnesian War. The plot, boiled down to its essence, entails a plan by which the women of Athens, led by Lysistrata, join with the women of other warring states and decide that they will refuse to have sex with their men until the war is ended and peace agreed to, as summarized here:
The women of Athens, led by Lysistrata and supported by female delegates from the other…
oracknows | September 24, 2006I realize that PZ and Skeptico have already posted this, but it's just too hilarious for me, as a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia, to pass up, regardless of who might have posted about it before.
We've seen Jesus in many strange places, even on toast, but I bet you've never seen Him appear in a location such as this before. I'm not sure if the first part of the animated GIF is Photoshopped or not, but it is hilarious. (Warning: Not for the easily offended.)
Hallelujah!
And if that's not enough, Evolving Thoughts points out that new images of the infamous "Face on Mars" Cydonia confirm that…
oracknows | September 23, 2006Oooh, I have to get me one of these!
Of course, the specs would have to be more up to snuff with what one can purchase these days. Even so, I wonder if anyone could put one together with a Mac.
oracknows | September 23, 2006Holy crap.
I suspected that my two posts about Dawn Winkler, the antivaccination activist running for Governor of Colorado on the Libertarian ticket, might generate some comments and attract some of Dawn's fellow antivaxers to the comments. Little did I suspect just how many, or how hysterical they would become. Because yesterday was a travel day for me, I didn't see many of them until just now, and, even having had a fair amount of experience with the irrationality of many antivaxers, even I was a bit taken aback.
I suppose I shouldn't have been.
One statement, I think, embodies the main…
oracknows | September 22, 2006With all the vaccination "skeptics" who've crawled out of the woodwork over the last couple of days in response to my two posts about Dawn Winkler, the Libertarian candidate for the Governor of Colorado who happens to be a rabid antivaccination activist, not to mention totally clueless and nasty about autistic children (and who even showed up to play the faux amusement bit on my blog), I briefly contemplated antivaccination woo as this week's topic. It would have fit well thematically and flowed naturally from previous posts and dicussion on the matter. After all, there is an incredible…
oracknows | September 21, 2006Skeptico explains why confirmation bias and the Forer effect make astrology seem like it might work when it's really a load of crap. As usual, he makes it plain why astrology is bunk, reiterating his Astrology Challenge.
oracknows | September 20, 2006Declan Butler of Nature has issued a call for help from the scientific and medical blogosphere in protesting and raising awareness about an utter travesty of justice, a vile and utterly vicious miscarriage of justice. This is one that I can't help but throw the paltry weight of my own blog behind. Here's the story:
Lawyers defending six medical workers who risk execution by firing squad in Libya have called for the international scientific community to support a bid to prove the medics' innocence. The six are charged with deliberately infecting more than 400 children with HIV at the al-Fateh…
oracknows | September 20, 2006I have a confession to make.
I've never really understood the whole pirate schtick that PZ and some other bloggers find so amusing and that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has included as an integral part of the great religion of Pastafarianism. I suppose that makes me an apostate or something like that, but I guess I just never really "got it." And I really never got Talk Like A Pirate Day, which, it just so happens, was yesterday. I realize that I probably risk being excommunicated from the ScienceBlogs collective by admitting that, but there it is.
Oh, long ago, I tried to curry favor and fit…
oracknows | September 20, 2006Yesterday's post on Dawn Winkler, the antivaccination activist who is presently running for the Governor of Colorado on the Libertarian ticket, provoked this comment, which linked to an amusing e-mail exchange that Australian skeptic Peter Bowditch had with her regarding vaccines a couple of years ago. After reading that exchange, I now think that I was probably a bit more easy on Ms. Winkler than she deserved. Perhaps I gave her too much of the benefit of the doubt because of the death of her first child of SIDS. I realize more strongly now that personal tragedy does not immunize her from…