Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski. That Orac has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 30 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)
DISCLAIMER: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.
A while back, I mentioned how the budget proposed in the President's budget for the NIH for fiscal year 2007 was flat. It turns out that, for those of us in the field of cancer research, it's worse than that. Making the rounds at our cancer institute is an e-mail from one of the higher-ups, which…
So, what do you do when those pesky scientific facts won't line up with your beliefs, be they beliefs that evolution doesn't explain the diversity of life, that mercury causes autism, that global warming isn't happening, or whatever your faith-based scientific belief might be?
Click on the image…
The Friday Random Ten is a bit of a blog tradition that many bloggers periodically indulge in, including fellow ScienceBloggers PZ, Chad, and John. However, Orac, ever the contrarian, likes to indulge in this practice on Saturdays (when he does it at all). So, without further ado, take a plunge…
Personally, I was hoping for either the Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica crew. Besides, the second Matrix movie was a big letdown after the first one, and the third Matrix movie totally sucked.
You scored as Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix). You can change the world around you. You have a strong…
A quick announcement:
I've been having a bit of a comment spam problem on the old blog, which is now mothballed and is only maintained as an archive site. Consequently, over the next few days to weeks, I am going to march through all the posts and disable comments.
I hate comment spammers.
Just when I think I'm starting to get a lot of regular traffic, leave it to PZ to show me that I'm still a bit of a peon. Normally, I get around 1,500 visits a day, but what happens when PZ links to me, as he linked to yesterday's post about RFK, Jr. and his conspiracy-mongering?
Nearly 4,000…
Occasionally, while perusing EurekAlert!, I come across studies that I like to call "Well, duh!" studies because they seem to come to conclusions that are mind-numbingly obvious. For example, this one:
If women want the best possible service at a clothing store, they had better be looking…
An excruciatingly large 29th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted at the Huge Entity. As usual, the skeptical blogosphere has come through, and Danieru has managed to corral the best skeptical blogging out there in, of all things, Mu-Haiku form, as he says:
In prose nor dialectic,…
I had wanted to let this cup pass, but couldn't, not after several readers e-mailed it to me and I went and experienced its inanity first hand. As Michael Corleone said in The Godfather, Part III: "Just when I thought I was finally out, they drag me back in again!" In this case, it was Robert F.…
Tangled Bank #48 has been posted at fellow ScienceBlogger Tara's Aetiology.
Go forth and enjoy the best the science blogosphere has to offer.
While I'm carnival barking, don't forget that the deadline for the Skeptics' Circle is tonight. The Circle is scheduled to appear at The Huge Entity (cue…
A while back, I wrote about Airborne, the "herbal" concoction designed by a schoolteacher that is touted as preventing colds and the flu if taken preemptively or lessening their severity if taken early on in the course of a cold. I concluded that there was no evidence that it did what Victoria…
Although the images used are a bit out of date (for one thing, that looks like a first generation iPod on the box), this video is spot on hilarious.
Pray this never happens...
Grand Rounds, Vol. 2, No. 23 has been posted at the blog of a fellow surgeon, the pseudonymous Dr. Bard-Parker (the significance of which you would know if you were a surgeon or worked in an O.R.) at A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure.
My favorite piece? This one by UroStream about removing…
While driving into work this morning, I was a bit disturbed to hear a news report about a speech New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg gave yesterday to a group of dockworkers in Newark who were protesting the proposed takeover of several U.S. ports by a company owned by the United Arab Emirates.…
Well, that didn't take long.
Only a few days after his conviction for Holocaust denial, David Irving has reverted to form:
Far-right author David Irving's repudiation of his views on the Holocaust and Hitler's role in it has not lasted very long. In a prison interview just days after he told an…
After the last blog carnival I mentioned, here's one I can really get behind.
Regulars around here know that I'm a 24 junkie. I have to get my fix of Jack Bauer's adventures (including his uncanny ability to get to almost anywhere in southern California within 20 minutes, regardless of traffic…
I love blog carnivals.
In fact, I love 'em so much that I hosted four of them took one over when its creator decided to retire from blogging.
But here's one that PZ, RPM, Afarensis, and all of the other ScienceBloggers inclined to defend evolution will want to wander over to see just how inane…
Nonmedical people always seem to have a conception of surgery as being a particularly glamorous profession. So did I to some extent before I entered medical school, although my surgical rotations quickly disabused me of that impression. Somehow, working from 5 AM to 11 PM every day and several…
Ya gotta love it. Whether it be the Virgin Mary under a freeway overpass on W. Fullerton Avenue in Chicago or on a window in Perth Amboy, NJ, or the face of Jesus on a shell, on the wall of a shower, on a sand dune, a potato chip, or (my personal favorite) a pierogi, it would seem that human…
Sent via e-mail:
Paris Hilton prepares for Mother Theresa role.
I almost choked on my ice tea when I read that. Please tell me this is a sick joke. It sure sounds like one, and certainly the source doesn't look particularly reliable. Even so...
(OK, OK, I know. Enough with the fluff. I'll start…
Time really flies, doesn't it?
In fact, the next meeting of the Skeptics' Circle will soon be upon us this Thursday. I'm anticipating that it will be...huge, as it's being hosted by none other than The Huge Entity.
The Huge One has placed his contact information and submission guidelines here. More…
Well, that didn't last long, did it? I've only been on ScienceBlogs for less that two weeks, and already I'm no longer the new kid on the block.
Nope, that honor now goes to William Connolley. Welcome Stoat to the Borg--I mean ScienceBlogs--collective. It looks as though he isn't integrated into…
I've always kind of liked Spongebob Squarepants, although I had always wondered about his relationship with Patrick Star. Here's evidence that my suspicions may have been correct.
Today, while I'm making fun of anti-Semitic idiocy coming out of Iran, perhaps I should stop being so upset over the free speech infringement that I've railed about regarding David Irving's three year sentence for Holocaust denial in Austria.
It turns out that he isn't really in prison, and his…
You can't make stuff like this up. You really can't.
Did you know that Tom and Jerry are in reality a clever secret nefarious plot by the Jews?
That's what Professor Hassan Bolkhari, who teaches philosophy of art at Tabatabaei and Al-Zahra Universities in Iran and is a member of the Film Council…
Those who've been regulars here for a while know that on Fridays and the weekends, I often (although not always) like to take a lighter approach with my posts and links. In that vein, I bring you a vision of what's become of Michael Jackson...
One of the greatest challenges in medicine can sometimes be to convince a patient that the results of scientific and medical research apply to them, or, at the very least, to explain how such results apply. A couple of days ago, in an article the New York Times, Dr. Abigail Zuker, proposed one…
Here's a comment that popped up in my moderation queue for an article I wrote on the old blog several months ago:
The Holocaust is a huge money maker for Jews; one they do not wish to lose. Irving's and Zundel's struggle in our time is analogous to Galileo's struggle with discovery that threatened…
