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Has swine flu peaked, and it if has, what does that mean?

Have you seen the movie "Speed"? Great action flick if you haven't. One of my favorite scenes in that movie is this one (apologies for vagueness ... I have not seen the movie in quite some time): There is a bus running wild on the streets being followed by emergency vehicles. A group of girl scouts are crossing the street, but the bus is coming, and the horn is blaring, so they run out of he way. The bus speeds by. The troop of girl scouts is led by their leader across the street again. But now a police car, siren blaring, comes tearing down the street. The girl scout troop jumps out of…

Global Warming, The Decline of the Moose, and "Minnesota Nice"

We have had a cool summer here in Minnesota, and this has brought out the miscreants who for their own reasons do not want to get on board with the simple, well demonstrated scientific fact that global temperatures have risen, that we humans are the primary cause, and that this climate change has negative consequences. There are probably different reasons people do not want to get on board with this reality. The main reason especially for younger individuals is that they have been told by their political mentors to not accept global warming. The political mentors, in turn, reject global…

Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) III

This is the third of three parts of this particular falsehood. (Here is the previous part) I previously noted that to survive as a Westerner, you can get away with participating in a culture that asks of you little more than to understand the "one minute" button on the microwave, while to survive in a foraging society you needed much much more. Moreover, I suggested that the level of complexity in an individual's life was greater among HG (Hunter-Gatherer) societies than Western societies. However, this is not to say, in the end, that one form of economy and society is more complex than…

Another day, another ignorant pundit

Today, it's Peter Hitchens' turn to make a mealy-mouthed appeal for an unearned respect for Intelligent Design creationism. This one is another generic whine, begging that people be fair and give some version of equal time to an underdog heterodoxy…creationism. After all, the only possible reason scientists could accept the idea of evolution is because they've mysteriously and unfairly acquired a dominant position, and this brand of pundit doesn't stop to consider why it's so popular. I think it's a kind of projection: they've acquired this unearned position of authority, so they can't…

There's no woo like Harvard woo

I'd start out by saying that here's another one for my (in)famous Academic Woo Aggregator, except that this institution is already a part of the Woo Aggregator. The only thing I can say is that Steve Novella (who's from Yale and has had to manage an influx of woo at his home institution) might get to feel a bit of schadenfreude over this, because the institution in question is Harvard University. And boy is this a doozy. In fact, it's a $6,500 dose of continuing medical education doozy! Check out Structural Acupuncture for Physicians: Date: 10/2/2008 -- 6/7/2009 Course #: 00292317 Areas of…

Vox Day's misogyny

I happen to be in Chicago right now attending the annual meeting of the Society of Surgical Oncology. It's a meeting that I try to make it to almost every year, and usually it's a necessary update to my knowledge base. Consequently, I only just this morning noticed my fellow ScienceBloggers Mark Hoofnagle, Mark Chu-Carroll, and P.Z. Myers piling on the latest example of the sexist misogyny that is Vox Day, this time in (where else) WorldNetDaily, in an article entitled The real assault on science. Vox's article, in essence, views the application of Title IX to science education to increase…

"What's your problem with alternative medicine?"

I've been blogging long enough now that it's hard for me to keep track of what I have or have not written, and on which particular blog. I used to be pretty compulsive about digging up old links to my first blog (now in storage) or to denialism, or even to this blog, but this can be paralyzing. I still try to make sure to link to other writer's pieces, whether on denialism blog, or at other blogs that I like, but if I were to be overly compulsive about this, I'd never get any writing done. And with that in mind, it's time for a review of alternative medicine (one that is a bit more…

Never say "hopeless"

On July 4th at 5 a.m., I'm loading the family into the car and driving very far away, where cellphones, pagers, and most critically the internet, do not work. Blogging has been very hard for me lately. I love writing, but due to work and family mishegos it's been hard to keep up with the posting. I'm hoping a stint up in the woods providing medical supervision to 400 souls will be rejuvenating. While I'm gone, I'll leave you with some of my favorite posts about the human side of medicine. I hope you enjoy reading them again, or for the first time. --PalMD I can't tell you the number of…

Cancer, cults, and kids

I've been reluctant to write about the Daniel Hauser case. I don't even want to imagine what his parents are going through. If you're not a parent, I can't explain it to you, so you'll have to trust me---having a kid with a life-threatening illness can drive you to do the unimaginable. And what Daniel's parents have chosen to do is nearly unimaginable, but until you've been there, judgment must be tempered by compassion. But that compassion is only for the parents and the patient, not for those who are supporting their horrible decisions. The basics Daniel is 13 year old boy with…

The Lavoisier Group

The Lavoisier group is an Australian astroturf operation. John Quiggin observed that: This body is devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics, discovered by among others, the famous French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry. Melissa Fyfe has an interesting profile in The Age on the Lavoisier group. Some extracts: At 401 Collins Street on Monday night, 50 men gathered in a room of plush green carpet, pottery and antique lights to launch a book about the science…

Let's make Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski do something good for cancer patients for a change

Today's post will be relatively brief (for an Orac post, that is). The reason is that it's some very sad news that depresses me greatly. It's also because I don't want to distract too much from the announcement I'd like to highlight. About a month and a half ago, around the same time that Stanislaw Burzynski managed to get off on a technicality, with the Texas Medical Board agreeing to dismiss its case against Burzynski because it apparently couldn't go after him for treatment decisions made by doctors he hired, I met an unfortunate girl named Amelia Saunders. Amelia had been diagnosed with a…

Steven Best and "Negotiation Is Over": Closer than Best wants you to know

I've made no secret of my opinion of the animal rights movement, in particular Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon who has openly advocated the murder of researchers who use animals while--wink, wink, nudge, nudge--denying that he's advocating anything. Another animal rights activist who is equally despicable is Stephen Best, who is affiliated with the even more despicable Camille Marino of the odious Negotiation Is Over, which has recently taken to targeting for harassment students interested in biomedical research who have worked with animals. NIO put this strategy into action, too, by targeting…

Out of tragedy, a campaign to increase vaccine uptake in Michigan

I've written before about how our vaccination rate here in Michigan are...suboptimal. Indeed, a couple of years ago, health officials were so alarmed at the increases in personal belief exemptions to school vaccine mandates that a new regulation was instituted that require parents seeking nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates to travel to an office of the state health department in order to receive instruction about vaccines. They can still get their personal belief exemption, but not without first undergoing instruction. So far, it's been working reasonably well, with decreases…

Bill Bruford The Autobiography

What do you expect when you pick up an autobiography of a rock musician? Sex? Drugs? Rock-n-roll exploits with a chainsaw and a gallon of baby oil at the Ramada? Scandalous stories of band-mates and sundry hangers-on? You get virtually none of that in Bill Bruford The Autobiography. It's much better. Insightful, entertaining, and well-written, Bruford gives the reader a unique view into his 40 year career as a drummer to see just how he got to where he is and precisely how this business works (or doesn't, as the case may be). You don't have to be a follower of his music or even a drummer to…

Multitasking, Part 1

Back around 1987 I picked up a Commodore Amiga 1000. This was an interesting little box for home computers of the day. In the late eighties the typical home/office PC was running MS-DOS and had a whopping 640k bytes of memory. The Amiga didn't look like the average home computer and it certainly didn't behave like one. For starters, it had a graphical user interface (popularized by the Mac a year or two earlier) and a two button mouse. Unlike the average Mac, it was color (4096 color palette). Further, it had a choice of screen resolutions including 640x400 interlaced. While those numbers…

But First...Roo-Roo!

Re: Ask a Science Blogger - Harsh Criticism, Did It Help or Hinder? Warning. My response contains offensive material. Oh, you're not surprised? Well, OK, this is the Chimp Refuge. You already know that there are piles of bonobo scat everywhere. So let's get to steppin' and squishin'... During my first "real" job out of my post-doc, one of my colleagues told me this joke, repeated here with my embellishments: Two explorers stumble into a wild unknown land, and are captured in the bush by the fearsome indigenous inhabitants. They are brought before the tribal chief, who conveniently…

A Handy Tip If Your Health Insurance Card Is Lost Or Stolen

As I recently reported, my mother's wallet was stolen last week, containing her bank card, driver's license, and insurance and Medicare cards. This has resulted in hours and hours of work for me to deal with replacing the cards, working with the bank to contest the fraudulent charges on her account, etc. I'm going to tell you something the health insurance company probably won't, because I'm not sure that the people who answer the phones even understand that their system works like this. When you call to report your lost or stolen insurance card, the insurance company will naturally want…

Tit-for-tat

Dr. Myers, after noting that a mere 1% of Americans things God is a chick (compared to 36% who think he's a dude), writes about Muriel Gray's idea to rebrand what once were called freethinkers (or Brights, or …) as Enlightenists: Enlightenists believe in the awe-inspiring, wonder, beauty and complexity of the universe, and aspire to unpick its mysteries by reason, constant questioning, observation, experiment, and analysis of evidence. The bedrock of our morality is empathy, from which logically springs love, forgiveness, tolerance and a profound desire to make a just, egalitarian society and…

I don't quite get the same impression...

The New York Review of Books has a new article up about blogging, and although much of what Sarah Boxer says is familiar it seems that science blogs have a different sort of existence on the web than what's described in the piece. I'll keep my grumbling that the recently published Open Laboratory wasn't given a mention to a minimum, but one particular passage struck me as a bit odd; Bloggers are golden when they're at the bottom of the heap, kicking up. Give them a salary, a book contract, or a press credential, though, and it just isn't the same. (And this includes, for the most part, the…

Some Tips for Punkin Chunkin

I already attacked the 2008 Punkin Chunkin Show. So, now I going to give the chunkers some tips. In case you aren't familiar, the Punkin Chunkin contest has teams create devices to launch a pumpkin. They have different categories, but I am going to focus on the air-powered devices. The basic idea is to make an over sized pneumatic potato gun. Here are the things I was inspired to think about. It seems all the canons were aimed at about the same angle. Did they guess at the angle? Or is this trial and error? What would be the best angle for a pumpkin launch? Does the optimal angle of…

Disco. Inst. blogger: Straight people don't have stable relationships

It can be difficult to understand creationists at times. Last week, I observed Disco. Inst. blogger Martin Cothran wondered: "If their relationships are already stable, then why do they need to be stabilized?" Cothran only applies that logic to teh gays, of course. I pointed out that the same logic applies to straight folk, and that he seemed to be arguing against marriage per se. Apparently that wasn't what he meant, and Cothran is now trying to rework the argument: So maybe we could restate the question for Rosenau and see if we can break through the logical firewall he seems to have…

Kobe Bryant Jumping Over a Car

We have all seen the Kobe Bryant video of him jumping over an Aston Martin - this keeps coming up on the Internet. There has been vast discussions of whether this is real or fake. I will do my best to examine the evidence. In short (in case you don't want to read the whole thing) Kobe can most likely really jump that high, it is possible that there was some perspective trickery involved. Here is the video in case you are brand new to the WWW: Oh - don't forget I already analyzed Kobe Bryant jumping over a pool of snakes. I voted that was real. First, let me give a personal note to Kobe and…

The Underdog

Over at Slate, Daniel Engber has a fascinating (and thorough) investigation of why we root for the underdog. There are numerous factors at work, from the availability heuristic to our deep desire for equality. But I was most intrigued by this research, which tries to explain why we associate underdogs with virtuous characteristics, like effort and teamwork: In one study, they [Nadav Goldschmied and Joseph Vandello] found that two-thirds of all voters in the 2004 presidential election described their preferred candidate as the "underdog." A follow-up four years later revealed that presidential…

Free Throws

A general assumption in the sports world is that athletes get better over time. Sprinters get faster, hitters hit more home runs, quarterbacks throw fewer interceptions, etc. And yet, there's one sports statistic that has refused to budge: the percentage of free-throws made in the NBA. Here's the NY Times, via Kottke: The consistency of free-throw percentages stands out when contrasted with field-goal shooting over all. In men's college basketball, field-goal percentage was below 40 percent until 1960, then climbed steadily to 48.1 in 1984, still the highest on record. The long-range 3-point…

Football and the Unconscious

In the latest New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell has a thought-provoking article on the difficulty of figuring out what sort of person is best suited for a particular job. He begins by discussing the challenge of choosing college quarterbacks, a topic that I've written about a few times before (and cover at length in my forthcoming book): All quarterbacks drafted into the pros are required to take an I.Q. test--the Wonderlic Personnel Test. The theory behind the test is that the pro game is so much more cognitively demanding than the college game that high intelligence should be a good predictor of…

A taste of S. E. Cupp

Long-time readers know that, last April and May, I invested a decent amount of time in tearing apart a book by conservative punditress S. E. Cupp. Cupp, a self-proclaimed atheist, had written a book defending the religious right, and she titled it Losing Our Religion: The Media's Attack on Christianity. Why, you may be asking, would an avowed atheist describe fundamentalism as "our religion"? I don't know. But she does, consistently adopting the fringiest, least atheist-friendly forms of Christianity as if they were the only form Christianity could take. Thus, she mocked Chris Matthews's…

Mooney revisits the Republican war on expertise

Chris Mooney's Republican War on Science is an important look at a pattern of anti-science policies by Republican politicians. When it came out, my review's main concern was "the only paths available to a Republican party that wants to promote a religious/corporate agenda contrary to the values of the public at large is to attack the details of programs or to attack the policy process. ⦠I wish Mooney dug deeper into that part of the story, but perhaps we can hope for a sequel. Mooney is certainly meticulous in his research, and this study presents the problem starkly. The epilogue, which…

Afghanistan, and why I don't regret getting Obama elected

Last night's speech wasn't one of Obama's greatest hits. Kevin Drum's assessment seems basically right quoting Adam Serwer's line that "It was a speech that reflected the president deciding on what is maybe the least crappy of a number of crappy options â without convincingly explaining how it would work" and adding: There are two possible reasons for the speech being so unconvincing: either Obama doesn't know how to deliver a good speech or else Obama isn't really convinced himself. But we know the former isn't true, don't we? You can fill in the rest yourself. The best that can be said…

Who are the cultural integrators?

On a recent diavlog between Dayo Olopade and Reihan Salam the role of minorities as integrators and catalysts for cultural ferment & change was brought up. Minorities being minorities naturally by definition would, one assumes, be the ones assimilating and integrating into the majority matrix. 70% of the American population is non-Hispanic white, so assuming a random mixing situation this segment will be preponderant. But there's a problem I have with this narrative: it ignores population structure. Integration and assimilation are real dynamics of American society, but obviously so is…

Justify Judeo-Christianity!

One of my more quixotic quests has been to dispute the use of the term "Judeo-Christian" in normal conversation. Many people who use the term do so without much forethought, it's just one of the definitions you use to point to the bracketing of the two traditional religions of Western civilization. In our modern context where there are great tensions between the world of Islam and the West it also alludes to a cleavage between the Abrahamic faiths where Islam is painted as the outgroup. My own contention is that the term misleads, and emerged out of an attempt to acknowledge the rise of…

Dr. Egnor has his own blog now. Hilarity ensues about evolution and medicine.

Remember Michael Egnor? I bet many of you do. If you were reading this blog three or four years ago, Dr. Egnor was a fairly regular target topic of my excretions of not-so-Respectful Insolence. The reason for that was, at the time, I was quite annoyed that a fellow surgeon could so regularly lay down such incredible blasts of pseudoscientific nonsense in the defense of his "intelligent design" creationism views. Back then he did this as a semi-regular blogger for a blog that is a propaganda outlet for the crank ID propagandists at Discovery Institute in much the same way that Age of Autism is…

A fallacy-laden attack on science-based medicine

Over my nearly six years of blogging, I've become known as a staunch advocate of science- and evidence-based medicine, both in the guise going under my long-used pseudonym "Orac" and under my real name. And so I am, which is why certain varieties of predictable attacks on science-based medicine (SBM) annoy me. Usually, they come down to appeals to other ways of knowing, rants against "arrogance," or tu quoque arguments trying to claim that SBM is as bad as whatever woo I happen to be criticizing at the time. Actually, strike that. The latter complaint often tries to argue that SBM is actually…

Whither the anti-vaccine movement?

Yesterday, I congratulated that bane of anti-vaccine movement and great vaccine scientist, Dr. Paul Offit, for having been accepted into the Institute of Medicine. It's a huge honor, and one well-deserved. At the time, I contrasted Dr. Offit, who has ascended to the highest heights of his profession through good science, with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, architect (or at least the most important architect) of the anti-MMR hysteria that gripped the U.K. in the late 1990s that's only now starting to abate, who is reduced to speaking in front of crank physician groups, being feted at anti-vaccine…

The problem of the oblivious white male atheist

I have to recommend this criticism of sexism in the skeptical community: skeptifem points out that while we're quick to outrage when someone like Bill Maher violates science norms, we seem to shrug off the fact that he's been rudely anti-woman at times. When someone does try to share the perspective of being a person of color or a woman in skeptic communities the majority of people in the groups I have encountered dismiss their viewpoint on extremely typical grounds. This article from richarddawkins.net has some really disturbing comments that illustrate exactly what I am getting at; an…

Friday Recipe: Chinese-Style Roasted Beef Shortribs

It's been a while since I posted a recipe, and last week, I came up with a real winner, so I thought I'd share it. I absolutely love beef short ribs. They're one of the nicest cuts of beef - they've got lots of meat, but they're well marbled with fat, and they're up against the bone, which gives them extra flavor. When cooked well, they've got an amazing flavor and a wonderful texture. This recipe produces the best short ribs I've ever had. It's based, loosely, on a chinese recipe, but it's cooked more in a western style. There's one unusual ingredient, which is a chinese sauce that I've…

Lottery Probabilities and Clueless Reporters

A simple, silly, but entertaining example of mathematical illiteracy by way of the Associated Press: OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- The odds are against something this odd. But a Nebraska Lottery official says there was no mistake: The same three numbers in Nebraska's Pick 3 lottery were drawn two nights in a row this week. Lottery spokesman Brian Rockey said one of two lottery computers that randomly generate numbers produced the numbers 1, 9 and 6 -- in that order -- for Monday night's Pick 3 drawing. Rockey says the next night, the lottery's other computer produced the same three numbers in the same…

Shrimponomics and Lobsternomics

Over at Shifting Baselines, there's an interesting discussion of a question that economist Steven Levitt asks: why are we eating so much shrimp? Unfortunately, the way the question is phrased--is it supply or demand--ignores the history of another crustacean craze. Lobster. It's hard to believe, in an era where lobster is a gourmet delicacy, that it was once viewed as equivalent to eating vermin (think 'sea cockroach'). In seventeenth and eighteenth century Maine, enlightened legislators passed laws prohibiting the provision of lobster to slaves, servants, and wards. Consequently,…

Beware the Icky Algae

This is all Massachusetts needs--an invasion of rock snot: Already a scourge in New Zealand and parts of the American South and West, the aquatic algae called "rock snot" is creeping into New England, where it is turning up in pristine rivers and alarming fishermen and wildlife biologists.... Over the past 10 years, the algae with a scientific name of Didymosphenia geminata, or didymo, has turned up in California, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, the Dakotas, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee.... The algae has the potential to bloom into thick masses with…

I Wouldn't Want to Attend His Journalism School

Josh Marshall describes his correspondence with a journalism professor who bashed blogs this weekend in The LA Times. Marshall writes: There's certainly no end of blog pontificating fueled by puffed-up self-assertion rather than facts. But Skube's piece reads with a vagueness that suggests he has less than a passing familiarity with the topic at issue.... Now, whether we do any quality reporting at TPM is a matter of opinion. And everyone is entitled to theirs. So against my better judgment, I sent Skube an email telling him that I found it hard to believe he was very familiar with TPM if he…

Bronchitis and Antibiotics

A colleague has told me about some interesting data that people are far less likely to request an antibiotic for a chest cold than for bronchitis even though they're the same thing. With that in mind, here's something from the archives. One cause of the evolution of antibiotic resistance is the inappropriate use of antibiotics in clinical practice. A recent study concluded that antibiotic therapy did not result in eliminate bronchitis any faster than not using the antibiotic: A study found that bronchitis sufferers who are otherwise healthy do not get better any faster by taking antibiotics…

One Way to Deal With Abu Gonzalez

We fire him. Actually, we refuse to fund his salary: There's a reason that Democratic voters aren't happy with Democrats in Congress. We feel as if Democrats in Congress are missing opportunities. Gonzales' crimes are one such opportunity. Rather than have another hearing, or issue another statement calling on him to resign, why not do something about it? Appropriations season is coming up. Cut off all funds to Gonzales' office, or at least his salary. The GOP may filibuster the bill, let them. If it's filibustered, it dies, and so does Gonzales' salary. If the bill passes the Congress, Bush…

Women Who Have Abortions Are Mothers

61% of women who have abortions already have children. So much for the 'irresponsible slut' propaganda. By way of Jill at Feministe, I found this Guttmacher Institute report (italics mine): The majority (61%) of U.S. women who have abortions are already mothers, more than half of whom have two or more children. In many cases, women choose abortion because they are motivated to be good parents. Women who have no children want the conditions to be right when they do; women who already have children want to be responsible and take care of their existing children. "We found that consideration of…

Push 'Focus-Grouping'?

You might have heard of push polling. But is there now 'push focus grouping'? Push polling is where you call up voters, and ask faux-poll questions that are actually designed to smear a particular candidate. For instance: "If Candidate X were to have had sex with farm animals, would you be more or less inclined to vote for him?" A bit over the top (not by much), but you get the idea. Other push polls are designed to push a political agenda in the same way. Onto focus groups. In focus groups, you recruit people and ask them questions, the goal being to elicit detailed, longer answers…

A Case Study in Pundit Over-Analysis

Here's one example, unintentionally brought to you by NY Times columnist Frank Rich, of how writing political narratives instead of discussing data leads to unsupported conclusions (italics mine): The continued political import of Iraq could be found in three different polls in the past six weeks -- Pew, ABC News-Washington Post and Wall Street Journal-NBC News. They all showed the same phenomenon: the percentage of Americans who believe that the war is going well has risen strikingly in tandem with the diminution of violence -- from 30 percent in February to 48 percent in November, for…

COBRA and Health Insurance Versus Healthcare

First of all, thank you to everyone who commented on my post about COBRA. One of the odd things about the situation was that I was screwed by the calendar: had I switched jobs during a calendar month, I wouldn't have to have picked up my own health insurance. This doesn't alleviate other inefficiencies, such as everyone wasting their time (and salary money) re-registering me for the exact same health insurance. Which brings me to a point that needs to be raised, even if it is obvious: There is a difference between health insurance and healthcare. Granted, even Yogi Berra probably wouldn't…

Sorry Shakes...

...but I saw Al Gore speak last night, and he's not going to run for president. He did, however, have a lot of interesting things to say. -role of television -need to incorporate internet differently into schools -overemphasis on liberal arts education (tension) -slammed Bush and global warming critics -decried scientific censorship Gore was a keynote speaker at the "Science and Society: Closing the Gap" meeting held here in Boston. In his talk and the Q&A, Gore made some interesting observations: 1) The last forty years we have moved from a society built around the written and spoken…

VRSA Hospital Insurance

I was recently at a conference (pdf file) where one speaker (Dr. Thomas O'Brien) suggested 'VRSA hospital insurance' to prevent the spread of vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus outbreaks ('VRSA'). Before I get into the plan, let's talk about VRSA. VRSA are staphylococci which are not only resistant to vancomycin, which is one of the last effective drugs against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus ('MRSA'), but are also resistant to most (or usually) all other available antibiotics. While tigecycline can be used to treat some infections (skin and abdomindal), it is not used…

Acinetobacter: It's Worse Than We Thought

One of my many pet peeves is that nobody takes 'ordinary' bacterial infections seriously. I originally wrote this post Jan. 8, 2006, but I was ranting about Acinetobacter since the previous August. The good news is that people other than infectious disease specialists are worrying about it. The bad news is that the Infectious Disease Society of America states that there's no antibiotic in the pipeline to treat multidrug resistant Acinetobacter. One of the talks I heard at the ICAAC meeting was about the emerging pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii (given by Yehuda Carmeli). Israel is having…

Which Ten Commandments?

Ed Brayton fills us in on the ridiculous Ten Commandments legislation in Louisiana, where they are actually editing the Ten Commandments. Whenever I hear about this kind of nuttiness, I always want to ask: which version of the Ten Commandments? In the Hebrew Bible (the 'Old Testament'), there are three versions of the Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:2-17, Deuteronomy 5:6-21, and Exodus 34:10-27. (note: I've linked to the original Hebrew version and the English translation, as opposed to versions translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. It was written in a language that we can…

When Sorry Isn't Enough: Here Comes the Iraq Revisionism

Everything Paul the Spud says (italics mine): We're actually starting to hear a lot of this lately. Republicans/"real" Conservatives are fed up with the out-of-control Bush administration, and they're ready to vote for the Dems, just to get them out of office. Well gee and gosh guys, that's all honorable and cool of you, but I just have one question for you. Where the hell were you guys during the last election? This editorial, in particular, takes the cake. His finger wagging and scolding is just so much hot air, for the simple fact that the Bush Administration has been completely out of…