murder

About a year and a half ago, I began an intermittent series that I called How "They" View "Us." There are several posts in the series now. Basically, given the amount of nastiness directed at those of us who refute pseudoscience, in particular quackery and antivaccine pseudoscience, by those who believe in it, I tried to envision, quite literally, how "they" view "us." I even did a talk on the topic at the Science-Based Medicine workshop at The Amazing Meeting last year. Basically, I pointed out that we might think of ourselves on the side of right (and, let's face it, we are), the believers…

Antivaccinationists, quacks, and apologists for antivaccinationists and quacks (but I repeat myself) seem to have an illusion that I'm just swimming in pharma lucre, that I sit in my underwear grinding out magnum opus-worthy after magnum opus-worthy blog posts, all so that I can rake in the cash hand over fist, lead a life of pure luxury, and enjoy ruthlessly crushing any hint of dissent regarding science-based medicine. Even if that assessment were completely true, as Lord Draconis Zeneca tells us that it is, it's not all easy being a prolific, logorrheic pharma shill servilely doing the…

It is by now old news that George Zimmerman has finally been arrested for the unprovoked killing of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, 17 yr old African American teenager on his way home from the store with a bit of junk food. It took over a month and huge public outcry to get even this small step towards justice but it is the right first step. But in case you need something new to get outraged about I would like to call your attention to the equally, if not more, outrageous case of Kenneth Chamberlain's murder at the hands of Whiteplains NY police officers. Police were summoned to the scene for a…

The skull of a spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), photographed at the AMNH's "Extreme Mammals" exhibit. There was something strange about the assemblage of Homo erectus fossils found at Zhoukoudian - the famous 750,000 - 200,000 year old site in China popularly known as Dragon Bone Hill. Despite the abundance of skulls and teeth, there were hardly any remains of the hominins from below the neck. Where were the bodies? The majority of Homo erectus fossils from Zhoukoudian were discovered and studied by an international team of scientists during the 1920's and 1930's. (Unfortunately most of…

The poison, according to Greek mythology, could be traced to the gates of hell. It dripped from the jaws of Cerberus, the hulking three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the underworld. For centuries, it's carried the  taint of dark magic. The ancient Greeks called it the Queen of Poisons, the deadliest of all. People called it wolfsbane, dogsbane, even - rather horrifyingly - wifesbane. The poison's reputation has intrigued writers over the years. Oscar Wilde used it in his story of a determined murderer, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. It was used  by a character in James Joyce's…

This is DJ Michelangelo Signorile's interview with Pastor Steven L. Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Temple, AZ. In this interview, the pastor proclaims that he prays for President Obama to die, calls for the execution of gays and says it is not be murder if a group of gays and lesbians were gunned down with a machine gun, or if the president were assassinated. Further, this man of god does not believe the murder of Dr. George Tiller was murder. Not only that, but this man then went on to attack his (gay) interviewer insisting he must be "molesting children" and saying that he…

tags: Harry Potter film, Marcus Belby, Rob Knox, actor People lay flowers at the scene in Sidcup, Kent, where 18-year-old Rob Knox was stabbed to death in a fight early today. The teenager died around 1am in an attack outside the Metro Bar, four other men were also hurt in the fight. Image: Lewis Whyld/PA Wire. This story should be placed into the "what the hell is wrong with people" category, but alas, it doesn't exist. Tragically, it turns out that one of the teenaged actors who is a character in the sixth Harry Potter film was stabbed to death this morning in front of a bar in Sidcup…