oracknows | September 2, 2007Note: We're back in the U.S. However, it is a long holiday weekend here in the States, much like last weekend's Bank Holiday weekend in England. Consequently, blogging will be mellow until Tuesday. Don't worry, things will return to normal soon enough, but since traffic's down due to over a week of mostly reruns and it's even further down this weekend, probably due to the holidays, I thought a little photoblogging from our recent vacation might be in order. (Don't worry; I haven't forgotten about some pictures from my stop by the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, but those will probably have…
oracknows | September 1, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 3, 2005. Enjoy!
Grrr.
I was browsing one of my favorite science blogs, Pharyngula, enjoying PZ's evisceration of a clueless creationist foolish enough to resurrect once again that long-debunked hoary old creationist canard that evolution is somehow not consistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, when I saw this in the…
oracknows | September 1, 2007I hadn't been planning on doing any serious pieces to intersperse within the reruns of old posts while on vacation. Despite the impression some have gotten from my Random Observations posts about London and Britain, we've had an absolutely wonderful time the last week and are sorry to see it end. (Although I understand that I might have ruffled a few feathers when I complained about restaurant service, who would have thought that a post about how polite and friendly Londoners seem to us or an intentionally silly post about our failure to have seen any squirrels in London would have ruffled a…
oracknows | August 31, 2007Sadly, I won't be in London for 10 more days. Consequently, I'll be missing something really cool that'll be happening a mere couple of blocks down the street where I'm staying now:
I did, however, purchase a nice cast metal replica of the TARDIS at this shop, the Stamp Centre, which seems to carry a lot of science fiction stuff (particularly Doctor Who paraphernalia) as well as stamps. It's a bit of an odd combination, but it works. In any case, the TARDIS will grace either my desk or my bookshelf.
For those of you who live in London or who will be in London on September 10, though, you…
oracknows | August 31, 2007...is still on vacation in London. It will return next week.
I will mention, however, that I managed to find time to take a stroll by the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital the other day. No, the fabric of space-time was not torn, but, sadly, I didn't work up the gumption to enter the building because I feared pressing my luck. It's one thing to stand outside the building and take a few pictures leaning against various signs; it's quite another to enter the belly of the beast itself. Such a mixing of skepticism and utter woo might be enough to cause a massive reaction, like matter and anti-…
oracknows | August 31, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on October 19, 2005. Enjoy!
Somehow I didn't find out about this story about a football coach who resigned because the school district ordered him not to lead his team in prayer at dinners before each game until several days after it had happened. Consequently, I had been debating about whether or not to write about it, its being old news…
oracknows | August 30, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on July 20, 2005. This one seems downright prescient as I read it again. Enjoy!
Today in Washington, there will be a march, called (with unintentional irony) the Power of Truth march. Its organizers claim that it will be to "protest the use of mercury in vaccines" (never mind that the mercury was taken out of nearly all vaccines in the U.S…
oracknows | August 30, 2007From deep in the heart of London, even here on vacation, I couldn't forget to mention that the 68th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted by Martin over at Aardvarchaeology. This carnival is remarkable for two things: First for Martin's no nonsense style of presentation; and second, because, thanks to my vacation, I totally forgot to submit anything to the Circle, making it perhaps the first Circle in two years that is totally Orac-free. Fortunately, I'm redundant, and the Circle is great without any contributions by me. Unfortunately, I'm redundant, and the Circle is great without…
oracknows | August 30, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on February 2, 2006. Enjoy!
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…
oracknows | August 30, 2007Alright, after being castigated for being a stereotypical American tourist complaining about the service in restaurants in London, here's an off-the-wall observation that my wife and I have made:
Why is it that there seem to be no squirrels in London?
We've been all over the city now in the last five and a half days (at least, all over central London), and we've been out into the western part of England to see Stonehenge and Bath. Neither my wife nor I have seen a single squirrel. We've seen lots and lots of pigeons. We saw lots and lots of sheep in the English countryside. We haven't seen a…
oracknows | August 29, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on December 27, 2005. Enjoy!
Since the very beginning of this blog, I've said that I'd love to see "alternative" medicine treated on equal footing with conventional medicine. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean what alties think it does. When I say "equal footing," I don't necessarily mean that alt-med should be treated with equal…
oracknows | August 29, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 15, 2005. Enjoy!
One of the criticisms of "intelligent design" (ID) creationism is that it doesn't really offer any new theory or even hypothesis to replace the theory of evolution, which it seeks to supplant (at least in the public schools). It merely exaggerates perceived weaknesses in evolutionary theory and misrepresents…
oracknows | August 29, 2007Here's another random observation that hit us quite rapidly upon our arrival in London and is reinforced almost every time we decide to dine out:
Why is restaurant service here so crappy?
We've been to several restaurants now, and only one of them (ThaiSquare near Trafalgar Square) had reasonably good service by American standards. I have to wonder if it had something to do with the fact that we were out with a former postdoc of mine and her husband, both of whom are natives, her having moved back to London after finishing up in my lab. A second restaurant, Bertorelli on St. Martin's Lane had…
oracknows | August 28, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on February 10, 2005. Enjoy!
A few days ago, I had been thinking that it's been a long time since I've blogged about alternative medicine. I was going over a list of potential topics, debating whether I should talk about alt-med in general or pick specific "therapies." And then, there it was, sitting in the in-box on my desk at work, a…
oracknows | August 28, 2007
Now that I've been in London for three full days, I've noticed a few more things. Here's one.
Although my experience is anecdotal over the course of a weekend, I've still been wondering: Why are the British so darned polite and friendly? Is it the long Bank Holiday weekend? (And why do they call it a "Bank Holiday" instead of giving it a name of some sort, to make it seem as though there is a purpose to the holiday other than a day off?)
Everywhere we go, we seem to be approached by various Brits, who want to engage us in conversation. It started with the Tube into central London on the day…
oracknows | August 28, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on January 16, 2006. Enjoy!
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…
oracknows | August 27, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on October 14, 2005. Enjoy!
Very early on in this blog, I wrote a post that would forever alter its history, entitled Weird stuff doctors get from pharmaceutical representatives.
Why did this post alter the history of this (then) young blog forever?
Why, it unwittingly introduced the character that unexpectedly went on to play a large role in the…
oracknows | August 27, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is gone recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on December 21, 2005 Enjoy!
When you blog about a certain topic long enough and post strong opinions about it often enough, you start to gain a reputation as one of the go-to bloggers on that particular topic, whether you originally intended it that way or not. Consequently, I wasn't too suprised when a reader sent me a piece by another blogger…
oracknows | August 27, 2007Even when I'm on vacation, lots of other great bloggers aren't. The lack of writing on my part makes it even easier for me to point you in the direction of posts likely to be of interest to my readers. Fortunately Prometheus has started posting again after one of his all-too-frequent hiatuses, and here are two of his recent posts worth checking out:
Another nail in the coffin
Myths and Legends of Autism: Part 1, The Myth of the Poor Excretor
oracknows | August 27, 2007Vacation time! While Orac is off to London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on December 19, 2005. I don't know if Bill Maher is still an antivax nutcase, but I'm guessing that he probably is. Enjoy!
Via Skeptico, I've learned of some more antivaccination stupidity issuing forth from self-proclaimed "skeptic" Bill Maher during his recent appearance on Larry King Live. Get a load of this:
MAHER: I'm not into…