Entertainment/culture
oracknows | January 13, 2009About four weeks ago, I wrote what I thought to be an amusing piece about how our blog "buddy" J. B. Handley, antivaccine advocate extraordinaire and now second fiddle in the organization he founded (Generation Rescue) to a Jenny-come-lately former purveyor of Indigo Child woo previously best known for being Playboy Playmate of the Year, a game show hostess on MTV, the star of her own short-lived sitcom, and a gross-out comedienne known for eating her own vomit or sitting in a pool of her own menstrual blood. Unfortunately, along with her A-list boyfriend Jim Carrey, this former D-list star…
oracknows | January 10, 2009I don't watch Private Practice. I didn't like Grey's Anatomy, which, every time I caught part of it, struck me as the cheesiest sort of medical soap opera, a General Hospital transplanted to prime time. Given that Private Practice is a spinoff of Grey's Anatomy, I never saw any reason whatsoever to watch. However, on Thursday night an episode aired that royally pissed off the antivaccine contingent, and that has to be a good thing. The episode, Contamination, featured a storyline in which an unvaccinated child shows up in the emergency room with the measles. The parents are antivaccine and…
oracknows | January 5, 2009Over the last year and a half, Jenny McCarthy has been, unfortunately, a fairly frequent topic of this blog. There is, of course, a reason for this. Ever since she published her first book on autism back in the summer of 2007, she has become the public face of the antivaccine movement and autism quackery. Indeed, Generation Rescue, that reliable bastion of antiscientific antivaccine pseudoscience and autism quackery, has been--shall we say?--rebranded as "Jenny McCarthy's Autism Organization." In the process, she has demonstrated a level of burning stupid that defies description, a stupidity…
oracknows | January 4, 2009Having recently learned that David Tennant plans to give up the TARDIS at the end of the next abbreviated series of Doctor Who (we Yanks tend to be a bit late on the uptake for news like that from across the pond), I just found out who the 11th Doctor will be after Tennant leaves: Matt Smith.
Forgive me, my UK readers, but before I found the BBC press release, I'd never heard of this guy before. (Of course, I had never really heard of David Tennant before he was chosen and only later realized that he had played Barty Crouch, Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and he turned out OK…
oracknows | December 27, 2008An oddly racist commercial, or just bizarre? You be the judge:
Oddly Racist Commercial - watch more funny videos
oracknows | December 25, 2008To wish you happy holidays, here's a perfect carol to sum up the pile of crap that was the latter half of 2008:
I had never heard of the Loomis Agency before, but it must not be doing too bad if it has the excess money to produce this. Either that, or its workers don't have anything better to do in the downturn. Still, it's pretty cool.
In a more traditional vein:
I know, I know, I posted it last year. But I don't care. I love that video. David Bowie and Bing Crosby sound so good together.
oracknows | December 23, 2008I'm happy to say, I've never watched an episode of The Doctors, at least if the episode segment I've just been sent is any indication of the quality of the science and medicine discussed on the TV show. The episode, which aired on December 11, featured a segment on autism featuring an old "friend" of the blog. The fact that he was featured on a television show ostensibly designed to discuss medicine and make it accessible to a general audience tells me that not only the producers but the physicians who do the show are utterly without a clue. No, it wasn't J.B. Handley or Jenny McCarthy, but…
oracknows | December 22, 2008Why does anyone listen to actors when they pontificate about health and medical issues?
Think about it. What is it that actors do? They read lines given to them. True, some have a talent that goes beyond that; they can actually write or direct. But few of them have any more abilities when it comes to science than the average populace. Indeed, arguably, they have less knowledge of science than average. Witness, for instance, Jenny McCarthy and her crusade against vaccines. Yes, I realize that she claims not to be "antivaccine," but her actions and words say otherwise. She's also managed to…
oracknows | December 21, 2008As much as I'd love to take credit, the postponement of the appearance of Jenny McCarthy and J.B. Handley on Larry King Live! originally scheduled for last night had nothing to do with me. Really. The cancellation was apparently announced shortly after my post appeared, leaving no time for it to have had an effect. Heck, for all I know the cancellation had occurred before I posted and I just hadn't noticed.
Despite all the insinuations of dire conspiracies in the comments of the Age of Autism post on the cancellation, it's far more likely that Larry King probably just didn't want to work on…
oracknows | December 16, 2008Just as a quick followup to my post on Tong Ren, the quackery that combines acupuncture, "energy healing," and, in essence, the stereotype of voodoo dolls in a veritable potpourri of woo, take a look at this news report done by the FOX News affiliate in Boston:
If you want horrible, credulous, idiotic reporting, the above segment has it all. Indeed, it doesn't even include the usual obligatory brief sound bite from a skeptic! True, it does mention that the Massachusetts State Board of Medicine's Committee on Acupuncture had received complaints about Tom Tam for his claiming to be a "master…
oracknows | December 13, 2008The Hitler Zombie definitely approves of this movie:
Too bad I don't speak German or Norwegian, because here's the movie website, and here's another trailer sans subtitles:
I wonder if I can take some stills from this trailer to use the next time I feel "inspired" (at least I like to call it that) to pen yet another Hitler Zombie epic.
oracknows | December 10, 2008I didn't get to see this interview last night on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. After all, I usually show up at work between 7:00 and 7:30 AM. However, Hugh Laurie, star of House, was interviewed by Conan and revealed himself to be not unlike me in that he's definitely a booster of reason and science in medicine over irrationality and dubious "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) therapies, not unlike the character he plays on House. Check out the interview. (The relevant passage begins at about 23:50 into the show.)
I knew there was a reason I liked Hugh Laurie, even though I haven'…
oracknows | December 5, 2008What is it about celebrity models and credulity towards woo?
Very early in the history of this blog, we first encountered Suzanne Somers, someone who underwent lumpectomy and radiation therapy for breast cancer, as well as radiation, but eschewed chemotherapy for "alternative" medicine. Guess to what she attributed her survival? Then she got into bioidentical hormones, even though it's generally a bad idea to pump yourself full of huge doses of estrogen far beyond anything ever used for hormone replacement therapy if you're a breast cancer survivor. (Her luck in not having induced a…
oracknows | November 20, 2008
PROLOGUE
LOCATION: The Liberator, cruising through space.
GAN: Are you sure it's fully switched on?
ORAC: Of course I'm properly switched on. Having depressed the activator button what else would you expect?
CALLY: It's his voice.
BLAKE: It's exactly as though Ensor were speaking.
ORAC: Surely it is obvious even to the meanest intelligence that during my development I would naturally become endowed with aspects of my creator's personality.
AVON: The more endearing aspects by the sound of it.
ORAC: Possibly. However similarities between myself and Ensor are entirely superficial. My mental…
oracknows | November 19, 2008It looks as though the Jenny McCarthy woo factor has claimed two more celebrity victims' brains. If a recently viewed press release is any indication, it appears that Anthony Edwards and Dustin Hoffman are getting into the autism quackery business:
Internet Marketing Company joins Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Edwards and others in fight to help children with Autism.
GREENSBORO, N.C. (June 4, 2008) -- Market America announced today that it is in the development and testing stages of a new line of nutraceutical products that will support the health of children with Autism…
oracknows | November 13, 2008
The things I do for my readers.
I'm referring to a movie entitled The Beautiful Truth, links to whose website and trailers several of you have e-mailed to me over the last couple of weeks. Maybe it's because the movie is only showing in New York and Los Angeles and hasn't made it out of the media enclaves of those cities out to the rest of us in flyover country, or maybe its release is so limited that I just hadn't heard of it. Certainly that appears to be the case, as the schedule shown at the website lists it as beginning an engagement in New York tomorrow and running through November 20…
oracknows | October 26, 2008I don't recall where I saw this, but I've been meaning to post it. What better time than a not-so-lazy Sunday, when I have to work on a talk, paper, and other things? (It's either this, or no blog for you on Monday; I think you know which you'd prefer.)
For those of you not familiar with Captain Jack, the reason he keeps getting up after being shot is that he can't be killed (the reasons would take too long to explain). I particularly like the Davros costume, I must admit.
oracknows | October 21, 2008Oprah Winfrey supports quackery.
That has been richly demonstrated over the last few years, particularly with her gauzy, praise-filled segments featuring such pro-woo luminaries as Jenny McCarthy, her frequently having physicians boosters of "alternative medicine" like Mehmet Oz and Christiane Northrup on her show, and her tight embrace of New Age "spirituality."
Alarmed at the antivaccination nonsense being pushed on Oprah's show, Every Child By Two has been circulating an e-mail:
Please Take The Time To Contact The Oprah Winfrey Show
It has been quite some time since Every Child By Two (…
oracknows | October 6, 2008As you may remember, the evening after the Hollywood face of the antivaccine P.R. machine Jenny McCarthy was scheduled to take part in a web chat. At the time, I suggested sending questions in to the Oprah website, to see if any would get through. I'm sure there was some serious screening and vetting of possible questions; so I suggested trying to word them in such a way as to indicate Jenny's ignorance without triggering the censors. Apparently never was heard a discouraging word in the web chat (big surprise there), but apparently one rather clever wag did manage to get a question through…