Entertainment/culture
oracknows | September 27, 2009Khhaaaaaannnn!
I mean, Arriiiaaaaannaaa!
Ever since its very inception, I've been--shall we say?--less than enthusiastic about the Huffington Post's medical blogging. Indeed, the level of anti-vaccine rhetoric there from the very beginning, back in 2005, astounded me. If anything, HuffPo's record has gotten even worse over the last four years, be it Deepak Chopra, or, in 2009, the addition of a variety of quacks to its roster, not to mention a brain-blisteringly stupid anti-vaccine rant by Fire Marshal Bill--I mean Jim Carrey--the promotion of "functional medicine" quackery by Mark Hyman, "…
oracknows | September 27, 2009I didn't know that Bill Maher used Twitter, but I do now:
The original Tweet is here.
Gee, given their similar comments about flu shots being "for idiots," you don't think that Bill Maher and Doug Bremner are the same person, do you? Maybe they were separated at birth! In any case, perhaps we should see how many of us can be blocked by Maher by telling him that if you call people who get their flu shots idiots, you're the real idiot.
Here's a hint, Bill. If crackpots like those at Age of Autism love your stand on vaccines, you've gone down the same road as the Gardasil crackpots you…
oracknows | September 25, 2009There once was a time not so long ago--oh, say, four our five years--when the anti-vaccine fringe was looked upon as what it was: a fringe group, a bunch of quacks and quack advocates, all in essence one big conspiracy theory movement, in which vaccines are the One True Cause of Autism. At the time, there were two basic flavors of this movement, the American and the British variety. The British variety began back in the 1990s, fueled by Andrew Wakefield's pseudoscience, lack of ethics, bad science, and even potentially data falsification for his original 1998 Lancet study that claimed to have…
oracknows | September 21, 2009I've asked at least three times on this blog, "Is Bill Maher that ignorant?"
The first time was four and a half years ago, when, in a fit of germ theory denialism, Maher proclaimed erroneously that Louis Pasteur had "recanted" on his deathbed, while spewing nonsense hither and yon about how disease isn't primarily caused by microbes but by "aggregate toxicity," whatever that means in woo-speak. The second time I asked the question occurred in 2008, when Maher lectured David Letterman about "toxins" and and suggested that he consider giving up his heart drugs and pursue "natural" therapies.…
oracknows | September 20, 2009Three Imperial stormtroopers discuss the destruction of the Death Star on the first anniversary of its exploding:
Of course Palpatine must have known! The logic is inescapable. Why else would Darth Vader have been in his Tie fighter and not in the Death Star when Luke Skywalker blew it to kingdom come? Personally, I always thought it was because he was needed as the villain for the next couple of movies and so he had to escape, but that's just me.
oracknows | September 19, 2009The other day, I ripped a certain woo-meister whom regular readers all know and most, if not all, regular readers mostly despise, Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com. As you may recall, a few days ago he slimed Patrick Swayze the day he died from pancreatic cancer, posting an article saying that Swayze was killed by chemotherapy and that he'd still be alive and Dirty Dancing today if he had only eschewed that horrible, evil Devil's brew of chemotherapy and gone with all "natural" cures. It was simply a followup of an article he wrote back in January saying in essence the same thing, although Adams…
oracknows | September 18, 2009Somehow I don't think any cosmetics company today could get away with doing an experiment like this to prove how well its cold cream cleans the most dirt and makeup residue from a model's skin.
I'd also really love a copy of the "Atomic Test Booklet" that people could mail the company to request. You'd never guess from the title that it's about makeup. Also, I have to wonder. Some 50 or 60 years later:
Is the model in this commercial still alive?
How many skin cancers did she have removed from her face?
Inquiring minds wnat to know!
oracknows | September 14, 2009
I just learned that earlier today Patrick Swayze finally died of his pancreatic cancer after having survived far longer (20 months) than the average patient diagnosed with stage IV disease (less than 6 months). All I can say is: Rest in peace, Patrick. Not only did Swayze deal with his terminal illness with courage, humor, and panache, but he was awesome when he slapped down the quacks offering bogus cancer cures:
If anybody had that cure out there, like so many people swear they do, you'd be two things. You'd be very rich, and you'd be very famous. Otherwise, shut up.
The recent revelation…
oracknows | September 13, 2009We all know that Mike Adams, a.k.a. the "Health Ranger," is anti-vaccine to the core. He's known for NaturalNews.com, a repository of quackery, anti-vaccine craziness, and conspiracy theories that rivals Whale.to but in a much slicker fashion. Now, unfortunately, I learn that he's going multimedia. Worse, Mike Rangers, who is about as white bread and un-hip-hop a guy as I can imagine, thinks he can rap:
The song is called "Don't Inject Me (The Swine Flu Vaccine Song)."
The common lies about the swine flu are all there: The claim that flu vaccines don't work; the paranoid delusion that the "…
oracknows | September 10, 2009...Hitler is most displeased with President Obama and what he did earlier this week:
oracknows | September 3, 2009As wrong and illegal as "smash and grab" theft is, I have to admit to a grudging respect for the skill and precision with which these thieves managed to despoil a sanctum sanctorum of computing, an Apple Store in New Jersey:
Yikes. All in all, they took they took 23 Macbook Pros, 14 iPhones and nine iPod Touches, all in 31 seconds flat.
If only these thieves hadn't put their ambition and skills to such an illegal and immoral use...
oracknows | August 31, 2009Last Thursday, I expressed dismay about an upcoming NBC news special, A Dose of Controversy, which is about a man who arguably caused more damage to public health than just about anyone in the last decade, namely Andrew Wakefield. Anyone who's a regular reader of this blog knows just what I think of Andrew Wakefield. I've made no secret of it; I have little but contempt for the man, whom I view as incompetent, dishonest, and a quack. Andrew Wakefield, as you may recall, is the British gastroenterologist who in 1998 published a study in The Lancet that claimed to find a link between the MMR…
oracknows | August 29, 2009I don't know why, but I'm tired, lazy, and in a bit of nostalgic frame of mind this morning, which makes coming across this ad dangerous:
Not only that, but Faygo is a Detroit company. At least it was when I was a kid. At least it's still bottled in Detroit. Ah, yes, Faygo red pop. Pure chemically goodness that no child under around 10 can resist--particularly because it would produce that lovely red pop mustache after drinking.
You may now thank me for having injected that unbelievably infectious (and annoying) jingle into the deepest recesses of your mind, where it will dwell for at least…
oracknows | August 26, 2009I realize that I've gotten into one of those runs where it seems that all I blog about is anti-vaccinationist loons, but, before trying once again to take a break from the madness, I had to go to the well one more time because this looks a bit frightening:
NBC News' Matt Lauer will take an unprecedented look at the emotional debate surrounding vaccines and the suggested link to autism on Sunday, August 30 at 7 p.m. ET with "Dose of Controversy." In the one-hour Dateline, Lauer speaks exclusively with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 medical study was the first in the world to suggest a…
oracknows | August 22, 2009I know this one's been floating around the blogosphere for a while, but it finally made its way to me at a time when I needed something lighthearted and amusing:
Best quotes:
"Well, science doesn't know everything." Well, science knows it doesn't know anything, otherwise it would stop ... But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairytale most appeals to you."
..."nutritionist" isn't a protected term. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. "Dietitician" is the legally protected term. "Dietician" is like dentist, and "…
oracknows | August 19, 2009As a "prominent" (as hard as I find it that anyone would apply the word to me) blogger about the anti-vaccine movement, somehow I ended up on the Every Child By Two mailing list. ECBT, as you may recall, is the organization founded by former First Lady Rosalyn Carter and former First Lady of Arkansas Betty Bumpers to promote vaccination against childhood diseases. It's a fine organization, and a much delayed counterweight to antivaccine propaganda mills like Age of Autism, Generation Rescue, the National Vaccine Information Center, and the up and coming antivaccine doctors' website Medical…
oracknows | August 15, 2009It's amazing where anti-vaccine nuttery will metastasize to when you're not looking.
This time around, Tom Chick (who, I'm told but don't know for sure, is actually Jack Chick's son) warns us about a new Wii game by Ubisoft called Your Shape. It sounds as though it's nothing more than another of "personalized" exercise guides, but what it does have that other such exercise guides lack is a certifiably loony anti-vaccine wingnut as one of its "health experts." Indeed, as Tom points out, this is what Ubisoft says in its press release:
In addition to being the face of Your Shape featuring Jenny…
oracknows | July 27, 2009Last week, I expressed my surprise and dismay that the Atheist Alliance International chose Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award. I was dismayed because Maher has championed pseudoscience, including dangerous antivaccine nonsense, germ theory denialism complete with repeating myths about Louis Pasteur supposedly recanting on his deathbed, a href="http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/12/bill-maher-anti-vax-wingnut.html">hostility towards "Western medicine" and an affinity for "alternative medicine," a history of sympathy to HIV/AIDS denialists, and the activities of PETA through his…
oracknows | July 23, 2009The only thing he's left out is a takedown of Nazi analogies. After all, Nazis wanted universal health care, too, except that they wanted to guarantee the health of the volk more than any individual:
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oracknows | July 21, 2009Ever since Jenny McCarthy hitched her fading star to the anti-vaccine movement and managed to get Oprah Winfrey to go along for the ride, she has become the public face of the anti-vaccine movement. Unfortunately, there hasn't been nearly as much blowback as there should be in the mainstream press, although bloggers have been all over McCarthy's promotion of the worst lies of the anti-vaccine movement and advocacy of autism quackery. Then I came across this the other day:
I'm of two minds on this. While it's a good thing to see cartoonists ridiculing Jenny McCarthy and Oprah for their…