oracknows | July 31, 2006Hard as it is to believe, the time is fast approaching for yet another edition of the Skeptics' Circle. Even though it's set to appear this Thursday, August 3, fortunately there's still time for skeptical bloggers to get their entries in to Daylight Atheism, in order to "lay waste to superstition and credulity with the sharp edge of reason."
So get your best work submitted by Wednesday evening, and join us for an antidote to the credulity of the blogosphere.
oracknows | July 31, 2006In the quiet and still of the crypt, something stirred. It was barely perceptible at first, but became more definite.
It lived again.
In the depths of what remained of its mind, only sheer instinct prevailed. It had fed long and well recently, and had returned to its crypt to digest its unholy meal. Some primeval instict told it that it was still being hunted. How it knew this it is impossible to know, but a sense of urgency had led it back to to the safety of its crypt to ride out the storm. The peace of eternal rest denied it, it could still occasionally have a brief taste of that rest only…
oracknows | July 30, 2006I've written before about Hutton Gibson (Mel Gibson's father) and serious crank, conspiracy theorist and proud Holocaust denier. I even speculated, based on Mel's cagey answers to direct questions about the Holocaust, speculating about whether he shares some of Hutton's beliefs. I ended up guessing that Mel just didn't want to criticize his father, no matter what a loon he is. I've also pointed out Mel's anti-evolution beliefs.
Well, during an arrest for drunk driving, Mel gave some evidence that perhaps the apple didn't fall too far from the tree after all. During an arrest for drunk driving…
oracknows | July 29, 2006Via Dr. Flea, I find this rather amusing cartoon: Dr. Id, written by Michelle, who, it turns out, was also responsible for the 12 Types of Med Students and a fairly spot-on portrayal of a medical student's surgery rotation. Dr. Id says what other doctors only wish that they could say and does what other doctors only wish that they could do.
In this case, Dr. Id confronts a mother who brought her children to the emergency room for mild colds...
oracknows | July 29, 2006You know, although I'm not exactly a huge fan of it, I have sometimes in the past liked to listen to a little dose (but just a little) dose of death metal. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for some over-the-top growled lyrics of death, doom, violence, and destruction shrieked over a churning demonic-sounding metal roar. Sometimes, though, it's a bit too harsh, even for me. Apparently I'm not alone. See what happens when a Cannibal Corpse song is "reimagined" as a lounge song:
I have to admit that Cannibal Corpse was a bit too much, even for me, even back in the day.
oracknows | July 28, 2006I have to apologize for last week's Dose of Woo. No, I'm not apologizing for the subject matter (the obsession that reigns supreme among some alties with "cleansing" one's colon to "purge toxins" and achieve the super-regularity of several bowel movements a day). Rather, I'm sorry I didn't point out just how disgusting one of the links I included was, because among all the glowing testimonials for how great colon cleansers felt after having supposedly rid themselves of all that nasty fecal matter caked on the walls of their colons and achieved the Nirvana of many bowel movements a day (or, as…
oracknows | July 27, 2006It's not your Friday Dose of Woo yet, but fear not. You'll get your weekly dose of woo in due course.
Kevin Trudeau is arguably the most prominent snakeoil salesmen of our time. I've leafed through his first book, Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About at the bookstore and recoiled at the conspiracy-mongering, lies, and self-promotion (a lot of discussions in the book urge you to pay for access to his website to get more information). As you may know, he's now released a followup book More Natural Cures Revealed.
Fortunately, Christopher Wanjek has read it so that I don't have to…
oracknows | July 27, 2006The latest edition of the blog carnival for nursing, Change of Shift no. 3, has been posted at Emergiblog.
oracknows | July 27, 2006I hadn't intended to mention this case again for a while, but an article in Stats.org brought up a point that, although I had somewhat alluded to it, I hadn't really explicitly addressed. It has nothing to do with the judicial decision, the Cherrixes' successful appeal for a new trial and the stay ordered by the higher court, or any the legal issues involved with the case.
It has to do with the atrocious reporting of this case by the mainstream media. In other words, it has to do with how the case has been framed, which has been essentially a near total success for the Cherrixes and those who…
oracknows | July 26, 2006Enjoy, as blog comrade and fellow traveler in the fight against Holocaust denial Andrew Mathis shows us how it's done when Holocaust denier Michael Collins Piper writes to threaten to sue him for libel.
Andrew asks: Michael Collins Piper: Filthy Jew-hater or twisted anti-Semite? You be the judge!
Can I pick "both of the above"?
oracknows | July 26, 2006When you don't have time to write something substantive, what do you do?
Post YouTubes videos, of course!
Sadly, I can almost relate to this one (after all, thanks to BitTorrent, I have now seen all of the episodes from season two of the resurrected series, with David Tennant playing The Doctor):
(Hat tip: Stupid Evil Bastard.)
oracknows | July 26, 2006Unfortunately, I didn't have time to write much for today. Fortunately, this gives me the perfect opportunity to remedy a situation in which I've been remiss. As you know, Kathleen Seidel has been tirelessly exposing the dubious science promoted by Mark and David Geier, who advocate using Lupron to shut of sex hormone synthesis as a means of "treating" autism by "making chelation therapy more effective." She's posted much more since I last referenced her.
The advantage of my not having much time is that you can read the results of her investigations directly without my extensive commentary.…
oracknows | July 25, 2006...has been posted at Medical Humanities. Enjoy the best medical blogging from the past week.
oracknows | July 25, 2006Alright, now they've gone too far.
I thought I'd seen every specious and fallacious argument and example that creationists could throw out there to annoy scientists and be gobbled up by the credulous, but I was wrong. They're muscling in on my turf now! No, they're not making fallacious arguments about how chemotherapy resistance says nothing about evolution. Been there, done that, and I doubt I'd bother if I were to see yet another such post. No, they're not twist the fact that cancer is often due to mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressors regulating cell growth and differentiation as "…
oracknows | July 25, 2006From the AP:
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- A 16-year-old cancer patient was headed to court Tuesday with his lawyers to try to block a judge's order requiring him to report to a hospital the same day for treatment as doctors deem necessary.
A juvenile court judge on Monday denied a request by lawyers for Starchild Abraham Cherrix and his parents to stay his order pending an appeal in a higher court, said John Stepanovich, attorney for Jay and Rose Cherrix.
Lawyers also asked the Accomack County Circuit Court to take over the case and grant the stay, and a hearing was set for noon Tuesday in that court…
oracknows | July 24, 2006Not surprisingly, since the court decided that Abraham Cherrix, a Virginia teen who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease at age 15, underwent chemotherapy, relapsed, and then refused to undergo any further chemotherapy, opting instead for an "alternative medicine" treatment known as the Hoxsey treatment, to be administered at the Biomedical Center in Tijuana, the blogosphere has been abuzz with chatter about the decision. Not surprisingly, I find myself in the minority in approving of the decision, even if I do so reluctantly. Indeed, not only do I find myself in the minority, but I find…
oracknows | July 23, 2006Eh Nonymous has posted a first hand account of a speech by Judge John E. Jones III, who decided the Kitzmiller v. Dover case on "intelligent design" creationism in Dover. We need more judges like him. My only thought is: How on earth did this guy get appointed to the federal bench by the Bush Administration? He's way too reasonable and unwilling to let religion influence his decision-making process.
I'm sure it's a mistake the Bush Administration won't make again.
oracknows | July 22, 2006It looks as though it's time to 'fess up. It's us surgeons who are the source of all that CO2. Sid Schwab tells us why. (And, no, it's not because of all the hot air we surgeons are capable of producing; we're nothing compared to politicians in that respect.)
oracknows | July 22, 2006Head on over and give fellow physician and outspoken warrior against pseudoscience Dr. R. W. a hearty congratulations!
Today is his first blogiversary.
May there be many more!