oracknows | December 15, 2006Yes, I know that skepticism and Christmas don't exactly mix. After all, most people, even highly skeptical and unreligious ones, tend to enjoy at least a few, if not many, of the myths that accompany the season, myths such as Santa Claus. But we won't let that stop us from having a bit of skeptical fun next week on Thursday, when the next Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle lands at Humbug! Online on December 21.
A while back PZ pointed out that December 20 just so happens to be the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan's death at the too young age of 62 and that a memorial blog-a-thon is being…
oracknows | December 15, 2006This rather puts one's life and place in the universe in perspective, doesn't it?
oracknows | December 15, 2006This week sucked.
OK, it was the last two or three days that sucked, but they were bad enough to ruin the whole week. The only reason my blogging didn't reflect this is because most of the posts over the last couple of days were actually written earlier this week, and the true magnitude of this week's suckitude didn't hit me until yesterday. Suffice it to say that my lab minions have caused me considerable aggravation and angst this week by doing something really, really dumb, a problem whose effect was amplified by the response of a colleague. (That's all I'm going to say about it.) To top…
oracknows | December 14, 2006Too bad I can't make it back to Detroit this weekend. In fact, it's worse than that; I'm on call. Why? Because Saturday is Santarchy night. Basically a bunch of people dress up like Santa and go barhopping. Much drinking and debauchery ensue. If you happen to live in the Detroit area, here's a little test to see if you're "Santa enough" to participate. Sadly for me, maybe it's a good thing that I won't be there:
You have scored a 100.
While not completely lame, you do make for a weak Santa. And while some might think that should exclude you from participating in Santarchy, it's just possible…
oracknows | December 14, 2006Given the interest in questions of religion, faith, and atheism among so many of my fellow ScienceBloggers, I'm a bit surprised that none of them picked up on this interesting tidbit of a story:
Pythons were probably the first idols to be worshipped by man, archaeologists said after unearthing evidence of a ritual dating back 70,000 years.
A rock shaped like an enormous python's head, discovered in a cave in the Tsodilo hills of Botswana, puts back the date of the first known human ritual by 30,000 years, they say.
Behind the rock, which was covered in man-made indentations, was a chamber…
oracknows | December 14, 2006It appears that I'm even further behind in my reading than Abel Pharmboy, because he pointed me to a couple of articles in an issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology that I haven't even cracked open yet. It's probably still sitting in the pile of journals on my desk that haven't been touched yet because I haven't gotten around to them. The issue contains two articles of interest, but I think I'll only touch on one of them for now because it's highly relevant to my previous posts about Abraham Cherrix, the 16 year old with relapsed Hodgkin's disease and refused additional chemotherapy in…
oracknows | December 13, 2006Everyone else is jumping off the bridge; so I thought I would too. Take that, PZ, Joshua, and Afarensis! I'm a monarch, albeit a mad one:
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
You are Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad or Charles the Well-Beloved!
A fine, amiable and dreamy young man, skilled in horsemanship and archery, you were also from a long line of dribbling madmen. King at 12 and quickly married to your sweetheart, Bavarian Princess Isabeau, you enjoyed many happy months together before either of you could speak anything of the other…
oracknows | December 13, 2006I've become a big fan of podcasting and now like to listen to podcasts when I happen to be in my office while I'm working and in my car while driving to and from work. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of good skeptical podcasts, at least in comparison with the number of credulous ones. I thought I'd take this opportunity to mention a few skeptical podcasts that I listen to regularly:
1. Point of Inquiry. This is the official podcast of the Center for Inquiry and has to be near the top of the list for any skeptic to check out regularly. Host D. J. Grothe is a great interviewer, always prepared…
oracknows | December 13, 2006Believe it or not, I missed my own blogiversary.
It's true. It was two days ago. For some reason, as the date approached I got the idea that it was the 13th, when in fact this blog was born on December 11, 2004 on a dreary Saturday afternoon when, after reading the TIME Magazine story about how 2004 was supposedly the "year of the blog" and, given my long history on Usenet pontificating on various topics, on a whim, I decided that I'd dip my toe into this thing called the blogosphere.
Thus was Respectful Insolence⢠born, and I've never looked back since.
Since then, this thing has grown…
oracknows | December 12, 2006Fellow finalist for a 2006 Weblog Award for Best Medical/Health Issues Blog Flea sure stepped into it the other day. A reader e-mailed him a discussion found on the dreaded Mothering.com discussion boards, you know, the same boards that horrified me with the sheer level of antivaccination wingnuttery and HIV/AIDS denialism routinely supported by the discussants there.
After expressing sympathy for a mother's loss of a child, he then goes on to show why it was not, as the mother claimed in the discussion boards, the vaccine that caused her child's death:
What follows is a very sad story of a…
oracknows | December 12, 2006
Regular readers of this blog know that I couldn't leave this one alone.
Yesterday, the Holocaust-denying President of Iran Mahmoud realized his promised dream of holding an "academic" conference to "debate" the Holocaust. Not surprisingly, it's a lovefest for Holocaust deniers. Indeed, many of the most "prominent" Holocaust deniers in the world are now gathered in Iran to spew their lies:
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran opened a conference on Monday to examine the Holocaust and question whether Nazi Germany used gas chambers to kill Jews, drawing condemnation in the West and criticism from Iran's…
oracknows | December 11, 2006It's that time of year again. Nominations are open for the best medical blogging:
Welcome to the third annual Medical Weblog Awards! These awards are designed to honor the very best in the medical blogosphere, and to highlight the diverse world of medical blogs.
The categories for this year's awards will be:
-- Best Medical Weblog
-- Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2006)
-- Best Literary Medical Weblog
-- Best Clinical Sciences Weblog
-- Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog
-- Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog
-- Best Patient's Blog (a new category this year)
Nominations are…
oracknows | December 11, 2006Via The Millenium Project, I've learned that some of the "Dummy" books may be living up to their names a bit too literally:
I almost didn't believe it when I was told that Understanding Autism for Dummies contains advice about how chelation might be a useful treatment for autism, so I used Amazon's "search inside the book" feature and there it was. Perhaps the authors could get a testimonial for the next edition from Abubakar Tariq Nadama. Oh that's right, Abubakar can't give testimonials because he's dead.
Understanding Autism for Dummies, indeed. Peter Bowditch is right. It's all there, if…
oracknows | December 11, 2006Over a week ago, fellow ScienceBlogger revere fired a bit of a pot shot across my bow regarding my bow regarding a study regarding, of all things, chicken soup. Initially, it was at a bad time, when I had other things to do, having just labored mightily to produce the latest Hitler Zombie extravaganza, after which I had to lay low blogging for a while because of obligations midweek. When those obligations were over, then blogging about the Tripoli Six took precedence, as did this week's Your Friday Dose of Woo (which, by the way, is still overrun by the tinfoil hat brigade). And then I just…
oracknows | December 10, 2006
I know, I know.
When I first found out that I had been nominated for a 2006 Weblog Award for Best Medical/Health Issues Blog a few days ago, I initially said that I didn't think I would win and didn't really care if I would win. And it was true.
Then.
Then, much to my surprise, I found myself actually in the lead by a sizable margin for a couple of days, but over the last day or so a diet blog has passed Respectful Insolence in the voting. Now that I see might actually have a chance to win this thing, I've had--shall we say?--an attitude readjustment. I've decided that maybe it's not so…
oracknows | December 10, 2006After I did an installment of Your Friday Dose of Woo a couple of days ago about some truly strange 9/11 conspiracy theorists, the tinfoil hat brigade has descended en masse into the comments section of that post. Consequently, it is quite serendipitous that I've found, via Secular Blasephemy, a new theory for the 9/11 Truthers to mull over, a post that suggests what was the real cause of the towers collapsing. It turns out that the truthers have not detected anywhere near the full depth of the government's deception. (Surprise, surprise.)
No, it wasn't passenger airliners hijacked by Islamic…
oracknows | December 10, 2006Strangely enough, even though I lived in Cleveland for eight years and my wife lived there for eleven years before we left in 1996, I don't recall ever hearing about this. I wonder if it's a new thing that somehow the New York Times just happened to notice today:
CLEVELAND, Dec. 9 -- They surf in Cleveland because they must. They surf with two-inch icicles clinging to their wet suits, through stinging hail and overpowering wind. They work nights to spend their winter days scouting surf. They are watermen on an inland sea.
Given its industrial past, Cleveland largely turns its back to Lake…
oracknows | December 10, 2006When I saw this test on ahistoricality, I just had to take it. I was disappointed. It was way too easy for me:
Rock Star
You scored 100%!
You damn rock star. You know all the basics, and if you got any wrong, I bet it was that stupid Traveling Wilburys question.
Your friends are probably intimidated by your knowledge of classic rock and envy your impressive collection. When a classic rock song comes on the radio, you can probably identify it before the vocals kick in most of the time. You probably get good scores on the "maiden name of Clapton's mom" tests, too.
My test…
oracknows | December 9, 2006Mike Dunford, whose wife is currently serving in Iraq, tells of a a worthy effort to provide aid to the families of soldiers who were killed while serving overseas:
As I mentioned recently, a number of soldiers in Iraq will be running the Honolulu Marathon this weekend. The course goes around a base several times, mostly over dirt roads. In part, running the Honolulu Marathon lets folks maintain a connection with home, but that's not the only reason that they are running. They're also running to support TAPS - an organization that provides support to the families of people who die while on…
oracknows | December 9, 2006Whether they know it or not, Pharyngula and Mixing Memory may have provided our undead Führer with a catchy new theme song. Yes, I know. You might think the Hitler Zombie would be more partial to martial music with a Triumph des Willens sort of feel to it. The problem is, I don't think there is any such music that encompasses what our zombie is about as well as this does. The song is by Jonathan Coulton, and here he is doing a live folk version, complete with zombie audience participation:
Pretty catchy, eh?
Next, the audience will be heading out to label their political opponents Hitler.…