oracknows | June 8, 2006A couple of days ago, on the Day of the Beast (6/6/06), Ann Coulter took the opportunity to unleash yet another spray of spittle-drenched attacks on liberals (Godless: The Church of Liberalism) into bookstores across the nation. As is her schtick, she's made quite the stir over the airwaves by making very inflammatory and offensive statements. This time, it was about the 9/11 widows during an interview with Matt Lauer Tuesday morning (video here) about what she wrote in her book:
These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the…
oracknows | June 7, 2006First, the good news: Holocaust-denying, white nationalist, atheist nutjob Larry Darby lost the Democratic primary for Attorney General in Alabama.
Now the bad news: He somehow managed to garner 43.53% of the vote. His opponent got 56.47%. It wasn't close, but it was a hell of a lot closer than I thought it would be. I once expressed amazement that such a crank could get 12% support in an opinion poll; now in the primary he somehow managed to get over 40% of the actual vote.
I guess that it just goes to show that in some places in this country, a bit of white nationalism and anti-Semitism can…
oracknows | June 7, 2006I really have to turn off my Google Alerts for this topic. I'm going to pull out my hair if I don't.
As you may recall, I've been posting about two young victims of the siren call of quackery who will most likely pay with their lives for their trust in quacks. The first, Katie Wernecke, rejected conventional medicine in Texas several months ago and is now at an undisclosed location receiving "secret" treatments, her father claiming that he can't reveal what treatment she is receiving or the doctors will stop treating her. The second, Abraham Cherrix, has gotten permission to leave Virginia to…
oracknows | June 6, 2006Today is another anniversary besides my wedding anniversary and a silly day that happens, if you twist numbers enough, to coincide with the Number of the Beast (6/6/06).
It's also the 62nd anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, the beginning of the end for the tyrrany of the Third Reich. It was a day when against terrible odds and despite many setbacks, the Allies finally opened a Western front against the Nazis at a great cost in blood. For all the jokes and frivolity about going to hell today, the men hitting the Normandy beaches 62 years ago experienced real hell.
John Cole has a…
oracknows | June 6, 2006I'm probably going to regret posting this article, as I normally don't venture much into these areas. Chalk it up to its being 6/6/06 and say that the Devil made me do it, but I plan on diving in. Besides, I feel the need for a brief change of pace.
Regular readers of this blog know my low opinion of RFK Jr. It began nearly a year ago when he published a deceptive conspiracy-mongering article about the alleged link between thimerosal and autism in Rolling Stone and Salon.com last year, in which he completely misrepresented a conference held about vaccines as a massive conspiratorial coverup…
oracknows | June 6, 2006Hell, Michigan, that is. The "Hellions" are planning one hell of a party today, 6/6/06, a.k.a. the Day of the Beast:
HELL, Mich. - They're planning a hot time in Hell on Tuesday. The day bears the date of 6-6-06, or abbreviated as 666 - a number that carries hellish significance. And there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that the day will go unnoticed in the unincorporated hamlet 60 miles west of Detroit.
Nobody is more fired up than John Colone, the town's self-styled mayor and owner of a souvenir shop.
"I've got `666' T-shirts and mugs. I'm only ordering 666 (of the items) so once they're…
oracknows | June 5, 2006Via The Onion (where else):
TALLAHASSEE, FL--Only months after abandoning a tenured position at Lehigh University, maverick chemist Theodore Hapner managed to disprove two of the three laws of thermodynamics and show that gold is a noxious gas, turning the world of science--defined for centuries by exhaustive research, painstaking observation, and hard-won theories--completely on its head.
The brash chemist, who conducts independent research from his houseboat, has infuriated peers by refusing to "play by the rules of Socrates, Bacon, and Galileo," calling test results as he sees them,…
oracknows | June 5, 2006Doctor Charles is waiting.
Yes, he's the host of the next edition of the Skeptics' Circle, scheduled to land on his blog, The Examining Room of Doctor Charles this Thursday, June 8. You only have two days until the deadline. Doctor Charles' contact information for submissions is here; general guidelines for submission are here.
Doctor Charles has been blogging quite a while, a couple of months longer than I have, and I've liked his blog since I first discovered it. Indeed, I've always rather envied his way of telling a story. If you want to see what I mean, check out this recent gem from him…
oracknows | June 5, 2006Perhaps you've seen it. Certainly if you've seen the "arguments" of Holocaust deniers, you've seen it. The desperate attempt to find one piece of testimony, data, or evidence that does not support conventional science or history. For example, a Holocaust denier will zero in on an eyewitness account of either a death camp or a Nazi atrocity that doesn't quite add up. Alternatively, he will make much of the discovery of a false "Holocaust survivor," as if finding out that someone lying about having survived the Holocaust somehow invalidates its historicity.
For example:
For half a century now…
oracknows | June 4, 2006Last week, I wrote about two teens (Katie Wernecke and Abraham Cherrix) who, sadly, had been duped by the siren call of quackery and were, with the acquiescence of their parents, on the road to extinction. It figures that more information would become available over the weekend (after I had written my article) about both of them, first Abraham and now Katie:
Katie Wernecke, the cancer-afflicted girl at the center of a bitter state custody battle last year, is receiving secret treatment from an alternative practitioner at an undisclosed location.
"On a condition of receiving treatment, there…
oracknows | June 4, 2006Doing the random Technorati search, I happened to come across a disturbing statement. Indeed, our intrepid colon cleanser was not pleased when I forwarded this to him:
Eneman, real last name, Fleet, is an illegal immigrant worker.
We know that there are dirty jobs to be done in the world, and the proper ones to do those dirty jobs are aliens (the kind that don't travel a thousand light years to look up your ass, but very closely related.) Fleet formerly lived on a street in London named after him and decided that that part of London was so personally degrading that he felt it was necessary to…
oracknows | June 3, 2006Compared to the usual topics discussed during the week, I normally like to try to keep the weekend fare on the ol' blog relatively light and fluffy (mainly because traffic usually falls around 50% and I like to post my serious material on skepticism and science on days when I tend to have the most readers), but to me this can't wait until Monday. As you may recall, a couple of days ago, I wrote about Abraham Starchild Cherrix, a 15-year old who, with his father, has rejected conventional therapy for his Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It now looks as though he will get to go to Mexico:
ACCOMAC, Va. (AP…
oracknows | June 3, 2006A very unique date in history is fast approaching. Indeed, if you're Christian and religious, you probably already know what it is.
6/6/06.
The Date of the Beast. (OK, you have to ignore the "0" to get "666," the Number of the Beast, but everyone seems to be paying little attention to that little detail).
Not surprisingly, Hollywood is having a little fun with the date, releasing a remake of The Omen, a cheesy but nonetheless scary movie from the 1970's about the birth of the Antichrist (named Damien in the movie) and the havoc he wreaks. (I still recall being disturbed by two scenes from…
oracknows | June 2, 2006Back in October, Jamie McCarthy and I castigated Bill O'Reilly for implying that at Malmedy in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge U.S. Airborne troops had massacred Nazis soldiers who had surrendered when in fact the Malmedy massacre was perpetrated by SS troops to whom U.S. soldiers had surrendered. Naturally, after ragging on him a bit, we wrote it off as yet another example of Bill O'Reilly's self-confident ignorance. I figured O'Reilly had simply mixed up historical facts in his eagerness to defend the abuses at Abu Ghraib by pointing to supposed atrocities committed by U.S.…
oracknows | June 2, 2006The time: last week, Friday evening.The place: Borders Books.
As my wife and I wandered around our local Borders Books browsing, I came across something you don't see every day.
In the Christian Books section of the store, there was a prominent display. In the display, not unexpectedly, were a number of books about faith, Jesus, prayer, and Christian spirituality. Then, something incongruous caught my eye.
On the second shelf of the display, surrounded by all these books purporting to tell people how to be a better Christian or how to live a more spiritual life, I saw this: Breaking the Spell…
oracknows | June 1, 2006All you need is this.
Yes, it's the Jesus Pan.
Who needs to wait for miracles to produce things like the Jesus grilled cheese sandwich? Now you can make them yourself!
Prediction:
Coming soon....The Virgin Mary Pan!
Maybe you can think of other great products along these lines? Lenin, anyone?
oracknows | June 1, 2006Via a fellow SB'er , I find this video by the Protane Clan. It's so-well....--unusual that I thought my readers might find it interesting (and maybe even entertaining), even though the actual rapping is kind of lame. If you've already seen this thanks to The Daily Transcript, feel free to move on. Otherwise, check it out and tell me what you think!
I'm not sure that this is the greatest way to be teaching protein synthesis...
oracknows | June 1, 2006About six months back, I wrote about Katie Wernecke, a 13-year-old girl diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma last year, whose parents fought with Texas courts to let them take her to Kansas to receive high dose vitamin C therapy rather than the chemotherapy and radiation therapy that she needed to have a chance of beating her cancer. Events have suggested to me that an update is in order. It turns out that Katie is still alive, although it is unclear how she is doing. Her family has apparently taken her to an undisclosed cancer treatment center out of state, where she is getting more altie "…
oracknows | May 31, 2006When I first saw this, I thought that it had to be a joke, but now I'm not so sure. I'm guessing you've all heard of ear candling, which can supposedly cure tinnitus, clean the ear canal of wax buildup, relieve vertigo, cure swimmer's ear, and provide a variety of other supposed health benefits?
Well, an orifice is an orifice, so are you ready for....ButtCandles� (I don't think that I am.)
According to the web page:
ButtCandles⢠are an exciting, and time honored, device for internal cleansing. We encourage you to peruse our site, read the referenced medical literature, and then make an…