I've come across Michael Savage's radio show a few times now and then. Basically I dismissed him as being even more obnoxious as Ann Coulter and not nearly as intelligent. I hadn't known he was an anti-Semite as well, but check out this quote from his radio show the other day referring to George Soros: Hey George, let me tell you something, I don't have as much money as you. I have 50,000 times the influence that you do, you punk, lying, coward, Satanist, backstabbing freak. You're the people -- people like you give Jews a bad name, Soros. It's people like you who brought about the Holocaust…

Leave it to Dr. Charles to remind me of something that happened recently, albeit in a bit of a roundabout way. It's something I would rather have forgotten, but, when you dedicate your life to battling the beast that cancer, it is something that is inevitable and something a doctor has to learn to deal with in his cancer patients. Fear of the beast's return. Paradoxically, it was not anything sad at all that Dr. Charles wrote about, but rather the triumphs that we can have over breast cancer that can give a survivor her life back and how a woman who has undergone a mastectomy to beat her…

From our Seed overlords at the ScienceBlogs collective: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why? While I'm not as down on this question as PZ is, I'm not quite sure how to answer. There are lots of other fascinating areas of science that I regret that I'll never get to know in depth. My first instinct was to say that I'd become a paleontologist or archaeologist. However, there's one problem. I like comfort too much. As much as I love reading about the fruits of paleontology and…

I can't stand Ann Coulter, but this response to her vileness is just plain stupid and plays right into her hands as "evidence" supporting the attacks Democrats that she makes in her book: QUIGLEY/STENDER CALL ON NJ MERCHANTS TO BAN SALE OF 'VICIOUS' COULTER BOOK Hate-filled Attacks on NJ 9-11 Widows Has No Place on NJ Bookshelves (TRENTON) - Assemblywomen Joan M. Quigley and Linda Stender today castigated political commentator Ann Coulter for vicious remarks made against four New Jersey September 11th widows in her new book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism."... In response to these…

I've heard of physicians using themselves as guinea pigs for their own research before, but this is ridiculous. Yesterday, my copy of General Surgery News arrived at my office. As I was whiffling through it to see if there were any articles worth reading, I came across a tale of a Japanese doctor who was truly dedicated to his research, so much so that that I had to hand it to him. Well, sort of. Yes, on p. 22 of the June issue of General Surgery News (sadly, not yet online as of this writing, so you'll have to take my word for this--or check up on me in a couple of weeks when they'll…

Grand Rounds, no. 2, vol. 38 has been posted at the Haversian Canal. Get your medblogging fix for the week there. Also, a belated shout-out to yesterday's RINO Sightings at Tinkery Tonk: You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers.

Ed over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has been on a tear lately defending the ACLU against spurious attacks from right wingers and religious. Now I see that that dreaded atheistic, America-hating organization has invaded a little too close to home, coming into my area of the country.Clearly any real God-fearing American can't let this be tolerated. Look at how the ACLU has managed to provoke a fawning editorial is doing yesterday: Awesome God is a wildly popular signature song of religious praise music. The lyrics refer to crucifixion, to God's mighty power, to his imminent return to…

Well, it didn't take The Spoof long to comment on the Andrew Wakefield affair. Choice bits: While on holiday in the US in 1997 he was introduced to a creationist nutter called Professor Hugh Fudenberg who claimed to cure autistic children by giving them samples of his own bone marrow. And, my favorite: Wakefield was recruited for a sum not less than the publicly reported thrity peices of silver and began being tutored in Fudenberg's "transfer factor technology" - the secret key to mastering miracle cures for childhood autism syndrome. This theory was based on a curious supposition that…

A few days ago, given that light of the "intelligent design" creationism movement, William Dembski, had bragged about how much he had helped Ann Coulter write the chapters in her latest screed (Godless: The Church of Liberalism) attacking evolution, I had wondered what he might think now of being associated with her, given some of what we now know to be also in her book, such as her vicious attacks on liberals in general and certain 9/11 widows in particular ("I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much" and "now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up…

When it rains it pours, eh? While I happen to be on the topic of vaccines and autism again today, here's a surprising story: Andrew Wakefield, the doctor behind the scare over a potential link between the MMR jab and autism in children, is to face four charges relating to unprofessional conduct at the General Medical Council, it is reported today. Mr Wakefield, a surgeon who became a gut specialist, could be struck off the medical register and debarred from practising in the UK if the GMC finds him guilty of serious professional misconduct. Following the publication of a research paper in the…

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that it's been a while since I've written a substantive post on the fear mongering and bad science that are used by activists to support the claim that mercury in the thimerosal used as preservatives in vaccines is the cause of an "autism epidemic." The closest I've come is using Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s credulous reporting and conspiracy-mongering, in which he uncritically parroted the claims of the worst of the mercury militia and arguing that his recent article in Rolling Stone uses the same sort of dubious and fallacious techniques, showing…

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a megafestival of altie woo taking place in my favorite city. It just occurred to me right now: If I were in Chicago right at this very minute, I could be in Hulda Clark's workshop (which is starting right now) learning how to cure all cancers and cure all diseases by zapping people's parasites and telling them to get their amalgam fillings and any teeth with root canals removed. I'm missing a chance right now to learn a new skill that would let me become the ultimate doctor! Why on earth am I still here on the East Coast? Well, I guess there's always…

Janet started it. John and Mike picked it up. Afarensis used it to avoid working on a post. John and Bora quickly chimed in as well. Well, given that it's a Sunday and that I usually don't do any heavy duty science or medicine posts on Saturdays and Sundays, it looked like a perfectly good way for me to waste some time in a (hopefully) entertaining way for my readers, particularly since the questions are actually pretty good ones. Yes, it's the ScienceBlogs v.2.0 Meme: 3 reasons you blog about science: It's my life's work. (What else am I going to blog about, besides science and medicine?)…

I'm probably going to catch some crap for this one, but it's kind of amusing. So what the heck? From Australia: Officials think the "Mandy" singer's music will keep teens from hanging out and revving their engines in parking lots. Officials in Rockdale, Australia will pump the music of Barry Manilow through speakers in their town to keep hooligan kids from loitering and revving their car engines in neighborhood parking lots. They hope that the "daggy" (slang for unhip) music will send kids fleeing. "Based on reports...daggy music is one way to make the hoons leave an area because they can't…

I've probably never mentioned it before, buy I'm 1/4 Lithuanian. Here's something one of my cousins sent me to make me "proud" of that heritage: VILNIUS, Lithuania - Lithuanian police were so astonished by a breath test that registered 18 times the legal alcohol limit, they thought their device must be broken. It wasn't. Police said Tuesday 41-year-old Vidmantas Sungaila registered 7.27 grams per liter of alcohol in his blood repeatedly on different devices after he was pulled over Saturday for driving his truck down the center of a two-lane highway 60 miles from the capital, Vilnius.…

Today is the day. Today is the day that Seed has decided to launch a revamped version of ScienceBlogs, complete with a spiffy new front page. It's long overdue, as the front page as it was had caused a number of frustrations, not the least of which is that bloggers whose posts are not as frequent would see their posts pushed off the front page in a matter of hours. Similarly the lack of any real categorization of the blogs, made it a less than ideal format. It worked OK when there were a few of us. We all knew that it couldn't work when it came time to add a significant number of new bloggers…

From AppleInsider: But when it comes to battling for headlines, Leopard may have its work cut out for it -- sources maintain that around precisely the same time, Mr. Jobs will also take the wraps off Apple's most powerfully stunning Macintosh to date: the Mac Pro. Aside from speculation that the Intel-based Power Mac successor would conform to Intel Corp's "Core" architecture, there have been few reports about the machine. Until recently, Apple's professional line of desktop computers stood at the pinnacle of its product portfolio, showcasing both the Mac's beauty and its brawn. In speaking…

It's times like this that I really wish I were back in Chicago. Actually, it's times like any time that I wish I were back in Chicago, but this in particular brings out that feeling: The Health Freedom Expo is invading Chicago beginning today. Of course, whenever you hear someone advocating "health freedom," it's a pretty good bet that it's an altie advocating quackery. After all, lacking data to support the efficacy of their favored treatments, alties often resort to the argument that attempts to suppress them are an attack on "health freedom." Of course, much of the time, what is being…

A slightly late plug, but big, brand new Tangled Bank is here. Enjoy the best science blogging of the last two weeks.

From The Examining Room, Dr. Charles, blog carnival afficianado and all around talented medblogger, comes the transcript of the 36th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. It begins with a question: To readers who distrust science, knowledge found through experimentation, and the secular truths of reason in favor of simply believing - I ask you - why should affirming belief in something be a virtuous concept if it misleads? Why should demanding proof be soulless and cold if it keeps you from ignorance and victimization? And why do they always want your money? I think I can answer that last…