humor
oracknows | June 9, 2011Whenever I call an anti-vaccine activist "anti-vaccine," frequently there will be an indignant response along the lines of either, "I'm not 'anti-vaccine'; I'm pro-safe vaccine" or "I'm not 'anti-vaccine'; I'm a vaccine safety activist." (This latter retort is a favorite of Barbara Loe Fisher.) Another favorite retort is, "I'm not 'anti-vaccine'; I'm for 'informed consent'" or "I'm not 'anti-vaccine'; I'm for freedom!" (Imagine the person saying this looking like this the photo below.)
Anti-vaccine warrior crying "Freedom!!!!! (from vaccines)"
Not infrequently, it doesn't take very long to…
pharyngula | May 28, 2011Join me, fellow nerds, in nodding in agreement with this comic.
From the mouseover text: "Also, all financial analysis. And, more directly, D&D." True again.
pharyngula | May 27, 2011I thought this was pretty funny.
But then I realized that this was the answer to the whole problem of the political assault on women by Republicans. If they don't give a damn about women's rights in the first place, we just have to reframe the whole question: Rick Perry and the whole lot of abortion-hatin', planned-parenthood-defundin', make-life-more-difficult-for-women patriarchal party-poopers are interfering with men's ability to get laid.
Put it in those terms, and I expect the party of plutocrats will turn right around. Nothing may be allowed to get in the way of a man and his sacred…
oracknows | May 20, 2011I'm a dog lover. I love dogs as pets and can't imagine my life without having a dog as a pet. When our dog Echo died unexpectedly of a particularly nasty form of cancer at 8 years of age, I was devastated. Our current dog is a great dog, and quite the character.
But what would I do if I were one of those fundamentalist Christians who apparently believe that we are at most 26 hours from the Rapture? (Or maybe not. No one said what time zone is the time zone that determines when the Rapture occurs.) I'd be whiffed straight up to heaven, but what about my dog? He'd be left to fend for himself!…
pharyngula | May 3, 2011They never seem to understand why priests get singled out. If I claimed to have special privileges and attention from a super-being, shouldn't I also accept some greater responsibilities? Unless I were just lying about being best friends with Superman, that is.
omnibrain | May 2, 2011And you can too! All you have to do is win this gorilla costume. This is guaranteed to work in a women's locker room*. I can't vouch for its success rate in men's locker rooms since.. well... I don't really have to sneak in there. Anyway, all you have to do to have a chance of winning this amazing gorilla suit is to pre-order the new paper back version of Dan Simons' and Chris Chabris' book The Invisible Gorilla.
If you're not into sick horrible ideas like sneaking into locker rooms (because clearly, that is the only thing you could possibly do with that costume) you could also pre-order…
pharyngula | April 27, 2011The existence of Ken Ham proves that creationism changes, therefore proving that it is not absolute, inerrant truth as he claims, therefore Ken Ham disproves creationism. QED. We can all go home now.
By the way, that's not a bad diagram for illustrating the relationships of the various versions of creationism, except that the pedigree breaks down for Intelligent Design creationism, which is kind of a weird syncretic hodge-podge that accommodates both of the major branches of the creationist tree. It really ought to be shown as the warped, evil offspring of an unnatural act, an orgy of all of…
pharyngula | April 25, 2011But how can I resist this telling of the True Story of Easter?
Really, though, it's no sillier than the standard story we get told.
sastyk | April 25, 2011Kurt Cobb has a very funny essay that argues that plants and animals have joined with the climate denialists to bring about the better for them "World Without Us":
The reversal of strategy began when domestic cats and dogs watched the Life After People series on The History Channel along with their putative owners. The cats and dogs then described scenes from the show to their wild counterparts. From there word swept through the animal kingdom and was overheard by many plants as well.
Life After People seemed like a utopian fantasy until some enterprising house plants realized that they might…
oracknows | April 19, 2011Hot on the heels of his excellent effort Immunize, ZDoggMD is back for a followup. Unfortunately, his partner in crime, Dr. Chase McCallister, billionnaire hemorrhoid surgeon, whose woo-fighting alter-ego is Doc Quixote, screwed up. Wandering into the University of Google, he came up with a rap that would do Mike Adams proud:
More reason than ever to get your vax on!
oracknows | April 18, 2011I've frequently lamented what might happen if the current trend towards quackademic medicine continues unabated, and quackery is fully "integrated" with science-based medicine. First, there was homeopathic e.r. Then, Mitchell and Webb brought us the British version, namely Homeopathic A&E. What I didn't realize is that predating both of these was...Holistic E.R. (Embedding disabled, unfortunately.)
Favorite bits: The bit about vitamin C, visualization, and crystals. Sadly, with the way academic medicine is being infused with quackery such as energy healing, homeopathy, and even…
sastyk | April 17, 2011I wrote this post years ago, and have republished it occasionally since - it has been a while, though, and it does go with the other one ;-)
Reasons to Stay Together in Tough Times
1. Gives you something sustainable to do during those rolling blackouts (sex and fighting would probably both fit the bill, actually.)
2. You can't afford dinner and a movie, much less romantic gifts for your mistress or new sweetie anyway. You might as well stay with someone whose expectations have already been lowered by exposure to the real you.
3. Lowered economic expectations mean that even if you are no…
mikethemadbiologist | April 13, 2011Last week, Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism posted a satirical letter by 'Outis Philalithopoulos' (Outis means 'nobody' in Greek) about another problem facing the economics profession--corruption of its practioners. Outis/Yves writes (italics mine):
Soon after receiving tenure, it occurred to me that we were being profoundly inconsistent. While we had correctly criticized the previous mainstream view that politics involved benevolent efforts to serve the common good, we had failed to apply the same rigor to the community of academic economists. As a result, we were modeling both economic and…
sa smith | April 8, 2011I CANT GET IT OUT OF MAH BRAIN!
IT GOES WITH EVERYTHING!!! I CANT STOP!!!! So y'all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband cause theyre homologous recombinaltion tinikering EVERYBODY out here!!!
oracknows | April 8, 2011The animated short movie version of Tim Minchin's fantastic nine minute beat poem Storm is finally available. Watch. Learn. Enjoy.
pharyngula | April 6, 2011This cartoon. Why? Because the first thing I do in the lab is hammer them on basic statistics, show them how to calculate p values, and struggle to keep them from over-interpreting their results.
oracknows | April 3, 2011Fetid, filthy, pus-filled cup? Your goblet of death? Green Hitler? Children of death?
Mixed metaphors, anyone?
Yes, there's a reason why the occasional Alex Jones rant amuses me. It shouldn't, but it does. On the other hand, the fact that he has quite a fan base for his short wave radio show, his websites, his Internet videos, and his podcasts is rather disturbing to me. Still, there is entertainment value to be had:
I particularly like the exceedingly pregnant dramatic pauses he uses.
You know, come to think of it, I just noticed something. Take Glenn Beck, take away his charts and turn…
oracknows | March 31, 2011Sometimes I complain on this blog about grammar Nazis. I had no idea at the time that grammar Nazis might actually be a real phenomenon.
Of course, I'd be dead because my unedited material all too frequently contains multiple run-on sentences. True, I almost always find them later when I reread my posts and then fix them, but in the few hours after such posts "go live" they often sit there, uncorrected. Oh, well, it is blogging, and I don't have an editor other than myself.
Now watch: Based on this video, everybody's favorite anti-vaccine apologist who keeps reminding us he is not "anti-…
mikethemadbiologist | March 30, 2011In a very interesting post about political power and economic equality, William Hogeland recounts some uncivil exchanges between Thomas Paine and John Adams:
Here's John Adams on Thomas Paine's famous 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense": "What a poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass." Then comes Paine on Adams: "John was not born for immortality."
Paine and Adams may have been alone among the founders for having literary styles adequate to their mutual disregard. "The spissitude [sic!] of the black liquor which is spread in such quantities by this writer," Adams wrote of Paine, "…
oracknows | March 27, 2011These are two videos that appeared to have disappeared from YouTube for a while, thanks to takedown notices from the distributors of the film. Fortunately, they appear to be back, which is pure awesomeness. Unfortunately, because I'm busy putting the final touches on a grant today, the first one resonates in a rather eerie way. Unfortunately, neither of them appear to allow embedding:
Scientific Peer Review, ca. 1945
Hitler NIH rejection
Back to work, now...