oracknows | June 22, 2006Mysteriously appearing prematurely briefly last week deep in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle, only to disappear again in an equally mysterious manner, the 37th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has once again appeared, but this time as expected at the home of Autism Diva. However, the participants are a bit unusual this time, in that they're the denizens of the deep, holding the first underwater meeting ever. Check it out!
Two weeks from now, the Skeptics' Circle will appear once again, this time at Skeptic Rant, where it was hosted once before in a most creative fashion. I'm looking for more…
oracknows | June 22, 2006Holy crap.
Just when I thought I had heard or seen it all, something comes up that proves me wrong. This time, the "something" comes to my attention via Corpus Callosum. It's a story about people abusing a drug. Only it's not just any drug, but a drug commonly used to treat breast cancer (which, given that a large part of my practice is the treatment of breast cancer patients, is why this item caught my attention).
They're abusing tamoxifen.
A survey of male and female gym attendees found not only growing rates of steroid abuse but also greater misuse of prescription drugs.
Prescription drugs…
oracknows | June 21, 2006Via The Onion (of course), Dr. Mike Ruddy proclaims:
'm a doctor, and I'm damn good at it. Why? Because I learned to be a doctor the old-fashioned way: gumption, elbow grease, and trial and error. I'm not one of these blowhards in a white coat who'll wear your ears out with 10 hours of mumbo-jumbo technical jargon about "diagnosis" this and "prognosis" that, just because he loves the sound of his own voice. No sir. I just get the job done.
Those fancy-pants college-boy doctors are always making a big deal about their "credentials." But I'm no show-off phony with a lot of framed pieces of…
oracknows | June 21, 2006Via Evolving Thoughts, this article about Ann Coulter's misrepresentation of the Dover case is just too good for me not to link to also. Best excerpt:
One part of her latest book that's getting little notice is the part that deals with Dover and what is purported to be the "debate" over evolution.
She begins her screed by saying that liberals have contempt for science.
What?
She offers as proof that liberals support stem-cell research.
Yes, I know, I don't get it either.
Lots of conservatives also support stem-cell research. Nancy Reagan, for one. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for another. Gov.…
oracknows | June 21, 2006It's been a very interesting week for those of us who try to keep an eye on antivaccination warriors who scare mothers with claims based on either no science or bad science of dire consequences that will come from vaccinating their children.
A very interesting week indeed, kind of like that old curse, "May you live in interesting times."
Last week, eight years after his study that set off scare whose repercussions continue even now, Andrew Wakefield was finally called to account for professional misconduct for unreported conflicts of interest and highly unethical and unprofessional behavior.…
oracknows | June 20, 2006Pearls Before Swine captures the joy of blogging...
I know how Goat feels sometimes...
oracknows | June 20, 2006Australian skeptic Peter Bowditch was challenged by a homeopath to take some homeopathic 200C belladonna tablets. Ever the intrepid skeptic and critical thinker, Peter has now answered the challenge in front of 100 people and reported his experience, beginning with a description of what he should have experienced:
A Modern Herbal by Mrs Maud Grieve, where it says that I should have been experiencing ""Strange indescribable feelings with giddiness, yawning, staggering or falling on attempting to walk; dryness of mouth and throat, sense as of suffocation, swallowing difficult, voice husky; face…
oracknows | June 20, 2006Time - He's waiting in the wings
He speaks of senseless things
His script is you and me, boys
Time - He flexes like a whore
Falls wanking to the floor
His trick is you and me, boy
Time - In Quaaludes and red wine
Demanding Billy Dolls
And other friends of mine
Take your time
Excerpted from Time by David Bowie(one of my favorite Bowie songs)
Uh-oh.
This week's Ask a ScienceBlogger question strikes a bit close to home. This week, our Seed overlords demand of us:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary…
oracknows | June 19, 2006Time flies when you're having fun.
Hard as it is to believe, it's been a year since RFK, Jr. first posted his ridiculous conspiracy-mongering piece on Salon.com. Ever since moving to ScienceBlogs back in February, I had planned on reposting this article on the anniversary of its original appearance. Unfortunately, for some reason I misremembered the date as being later last June than it really was, leading me to forget completely about reposting on the day it should have been reposted, namely last Saturday. Oh, well, better late than never. If you're curious about how I plunged head first…
oracknows | June 19, 2006This weeks' Skeptics' Circle made a brief and mysterious appearance last week, only to disappear just as mysteriously back into the Bermuda Triangle. No doubt it will appear again as scheduled this week on Thursday, as always. If you want to take part, get your best skeptical blogging to Autism Diva at the this address by Wednesday evening. As usual, the guidelines are here.
You wouldn't want to disappoint the Diva, would you?
oracknows | June 19, 2006Clark posted the latest Pediatric Grand Rounds Friday. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to posting a plug until now. Go forth and read the best medblogging about pediatrics. Hopefully, I can give him a little late boost in traffic.
Enjoy.
oracknows | June 19, 2006Almost two months ago, I posted a rather light-hearted skeptical takedown of a guy by the name of Don Lemmon, who billed himself on his website as The #1 Nutritionist Online. The main gimmicks of the post were twofold. First, I poked fun at his selling of dessicated animal glands, in which he harkened back to a 16th century alchemist and physician named Paracelsus to justify what appeared to me to be a variant of the quackery known as live cell therapy. The second part of my schtick was to feign envy at the success that he appeared to be having over it all, marrying a retired porn star,…
oracknows | June 18, 2006There's only one thing to say about this little video clip: Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom.....
Hat tip to my sister for e-mailing me this!
Hmmm, maybe I'll get serious again tomorrow and try to answer the latest Ask a Scienceblogger question or perhaps cover some other of my usual topics. Some alties have used that very question plus my pseudoanonymity to question whether I am actually who I say I am. It might take more than the 300 words our Seed overlords prefer us to limit ourselves to, which is why it might have to wait until Tuesday.
oracknows | June 18, 2006Too bad I don't smoke. Well, actually, no it isn't, given the horrible health effects of smoking. Be that as it may, I wish I had a couple of these to have around the house for when relatives who smoke come over (photo below the fold):
Courtesy of the Singapore Cancer Society, and hat tip to Medgadget and Pharmagossip.
Of course, the Singapore Cancer Society also asks one of the stranger questions that I've ever heard:
Hmmm. I'd rather not answer that question, thank you very much.
oracknows | June 17, 2006As I sit here marveling that, as of this writing, it's almost the summer solstice and the Detroit Tigers still have the best record in baseball (with the New York Mets not far behind, yet!) I come across this depressing news. Tiger Stadium is going to be razed this fall:
It's official.
After years of debate and false hopes, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has decided to raze Tiger Stadium, the historic but decaying home of Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg and the 1984 World Series champion Tigers.
In its place, Kilpatrick envisions a ring of retail shops and residential housing surrounding the…
oracknows | June 16, 2006I knew he wasn't nearly as clean-cut as his televisioin persona implied, but who knew Bob Saget was such a badass.
(Warning for if you're at work: Much gratuituous use of the F-word is contained.)
What I want to know is how they got George Lucas in the video.
oracknows | June 16, 2006In Petaluma, California (the Bay area), as reported by ABC 7:
June 14 - KGO - More former clients of a North Bay chiropractor are coming forward, echoing what we reported a month-and-a-half ago -- that Daniel Marsh is making money off some bizarre treatments.
State investigators are looking into Dr. Marsh, his treatments and his billing practices. They're checking out information uncovered by the I-Team. And now we've received new complaints about the Petaluma chiropractor.
Marianne Whitfield went to Petaluma chiropractor Daniel Marsh for her severe heartburn, or acid reflux. He had an…
oracknows | June 16, 2006Over at the Nature blogs, they're soliciting comments and opinions about open peer review:
The goal of any change in the peer review system must be to improve the quality of review, where quality is determined by two distinct functions: filtering manuscripts for publication in a given journal; and making constructive suggestions on how the manuscript or study could be improved. Would open review (in which reviewers sign their reviews) accomplish this goal? I have experienced several cases of open review, intentional and unintentional, with mixed results.
It's an interesting question, which…
oracknows | June 16, 2006Yesterday, I wrote a bit about Michael Savage's attack on George Soros, in which he stated that "people like you give Jews a bad name, Soros. It's people like you who brought about the Holocaust, Soros. I stand by those words."
Admittedly, at the time I wrote my little rant, I didn't know that Michael Savage is, in fact, Jewish himself. My bad. I should have checked and was a bit embarrassed to have to have it pointed out to me by a reader. In actuality, after it was pointed out to me I did remember that I had heard somewhere that Savage's real name is Michael Alan Weiner. Sadly, the fact…
oracknows | June 15, 2006I don't know if it's possible to be to the right of Ann Coulter, but Spacemonkey over at IMAO gives it a try.
I'm not sure that he succeeds. After all, he says, "We let God's will or survival of the fittest, if you swing that way, be the appeals process."
I don't think that Coulter would never concede even in the least that anything even remotely connected with evolution could be true--at least not in public.