Treehugger is the place to go for BS science news

Based upon the drivel in their article "Could a Link Exist Between Super Moons and Erupting Volcanoes?" it's probably a safe bet that treehugger.com's science editor was dropped on their head a few times as a child.

The article features Donna O'Meara writing about Stephen James O'Meara. Gee, wonder why they have the same last name... The article is a fawning love letter to Stephen O'Meara that makes passing mention of him having a theory, but never provides any real indication that he has evidence to back it up. The "evidence" consists entirely of "Hey, this guy who photographs VOLCANOES thinks the Moon might make them erupt sometimes! He says he has some data too! He's really smart so you should believe him! Galileo! Einstein!"

The piece is peppered with pleading attempts to cast O'Meara as a luminary. Galileo is brought up as a comparison. There's also this bit of artistic license:

In 1985, Steve defied every written word about the limits of the human vision and became the first person on Earth first to visually recover Halley's comet on its 76-year return, using a 24-inch telescope and bottled oxygen at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

That's a breathless way of saying he went up really high and used new technology to see a comet, but his breathless biographer claims he "defied every written word about the limits of the human vision" by simply using new technology in the way its designers intended. You could say the same thing of the first astronomer who ever used the Hubble telescope. This of course assumes the claim is even true.

It's not until after a few paragraphs of irrelevant biography that you get to the actual claims hinted at in the article's title:

On a five day observing trip to Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna, Costa Rica O'Meara's disciplined astronomy background led him to recognize a pattern in the volcanic eruptions that correlated with lunar tides and the Moon and Sun's gravitational pull. The 'Light Bulb' was lit!"

In the historic records a few people have noted lunar phases when viewing volcanic eruptions, but no one has ever investigated a serious link between the Moon and volcanoes and put it to a conclusive scientific test.

That's pretty much it. The article goes on to describe a few mechanics of tidal forces and further speculate on how the moon might impact volcanoes but never provides any evidence. Einstein is mentioned. A vague claim is made that the data exists, but no hint at what that evidence could be or when it is being published is ever offered.

It's clear the article writer doesn't really understand even the vague hints she makes as to what's being claimed. At one point the article points out that "In the historic records a few people have noted lunar phases when viewing volcanic eruptions". The problem with that is the actual PHASE of the moon isn't all that important to the theory. O'Meara's theory, such as it is, cares about the tides. The phase is merely the result of the Earth's shadow being cast upon the moon, not the gravitational pull the Moon is putting on that portion of the Earth at that given moment.

O'Meara's apparent incompetence as a researcher is highlighted, although unintentionally. Many volcanic eruptions are very well documented. If O'Meara is serious about proving his theory, why hasn't he gone over old eruption data and calculated the position of the moon in relation to those eruptions? The data to prove, or disprove, his theory is already recorded, all he has to do is process it. Why hasn't he? If he doesn't have enough confidence in his own theory to spend a few weekends doing rudimentary research to back it up, why should anyone believe him when he espouses it?

One of the final whimpers in the article comes in the form of a tired old chestnut popular among cranks, quacks and con artists.

new scientific ideas have been difficult, if not impossible, to prove to the prevailing scientific community.

People with no evidence often lament the pesky need scientists have for evidence. The bar can be high, especially when unseating an established idea, but it's this resistance to accept every new notion that floats to the top of a man's mind that keeps science grounded in fact and not fantasy. Anytime someone uses the boogieman of an entrenched scientific community as a way of defending their lack of evidence it's a red flag that can't be ignored. In the real world established theories are overturned on a regular basis. It's how science progresses and how scientists make a name for themselves. You don't get grants to re-prove something that's already established.

I have no issue with the vague details mentioned about the alleged theory. The notion that the Moon's gravitational pull could have some kind of vague influence on volcanic eruptions is, on the surface, plausible enough to warrant a closer look. My issue is with O'Meara pimping the theory using "science by press conference" with no data or research to back up his assertions. Supporting his claims with research would be more useful. Based on the claims made about his career in the article, O'Meara should know scientists need more than a smug smile and a few self-aggrandizing mentions of Einstein before they accept a theory.

No, it's not because people think he's gay

Unmarried Pastor, Seeking a Job, Sees Bias

Mr. Almlie, 37, has been shocked, he says, at what he calls unfair discrimination, based mainly on irrational fears: that a single pastor cannot counsel a mostly married flock, that he might sow turmoil by flirting with a church member, or that he might be gay. If the job search is hard for single men, it is doubly so for single women who train for the ministry, in part because many evangelical denominations explicitly require a man to lead

I don't think this guy's problems are because of fears that he might be gay. The fact that he's unmarried means any attempts he makes at tasks like marriage counseling will be purely theoretical. I've spoken to a few Catholics who insist that it's a GOOD thing Priests providing marriage counseling aren't "tainted" by experience, but damn it, if I want advice I want it from someone who has some relevant experience, not a theoretician who never put the theory into practice himself.

A big part of Christian theology is the human aspect of Christ. His coming to Earth and becoming one of us is part of the redemption. He KNOWS what it's like to face death and pain, to be temped as a man. Having walked in the shoes of the person you're speaking to is a major advantage in any kind of counseling, be it spiritual or secular.

As far as fears of him flirting with parishioners, that too is likely not a real issue. Single pastors are targets in a church. Plenty of marriage minded women set their sights on single minsters. This is to be expected. True, pushing 40 and being unmarried is going to trigger some "so what's WRONG with him that no one has married him?" speculation, but the lack of relevant experience is probably a bigger issue.

"Equal" Does Not Mean What You Think it Means

It's important to remember that Huck isn't talking about "Equal" by the definition of things like "All men are created equal" but in terms of making Fundamentalist interpretations of Biblical text equal in standing to secular law. It's not about equality between citizens, but about dissolving Separation of Church and State.

ThinkProgress » Blog Archive » Huckabee: Leaders With ‘Biblical Worldview’ Would Bring ‘Equality’ To The World

Exploiting the Japanese Nuclear Emergency

You add +10 to your saving throw against nuclear bombs!

There's tasteless, there's vile and then there's rank exploitation of fear and the vulnerable.

Bungling cops raid wrong home... for 41st time

The police should be wary of whoever rents this house next. There are plenty of militia groups in the US and UK who would LOVE an opportunity to set a trap for the police. All they'd have to do is rent it under a false or stolen identity.

On the flip side they might get lucky and the place will be rented by a hot nymphomaniac with a fetish for men in uniform, but I suspect psychotic militia freakjobs outnumber such women by a significant margin.

Idaho Republicans pass bill to enslave their descendants

The Idaho bill, which excludes issues like class size and workloads from negotiations for the state's 12,000 unionized teachers, was given final approval by the Republican-led House and is expected to be signed by Republican Governor Butch Otter.

I've read some hand-wringing about the current anti-Union movements being the end of the USA and the rise of a feudal plutocracy, but this is not the end of the USA by any stretch of the imagination. What's happening is conservative states are being reworked into pools for uneducated labor. The Idaho bill specifically removes issues like class size and teacher workload from union negotiations, pretty much guaranteeing teachers will be overworked, underpaid and be teaching more kids than is reasonable for providing a decent education. 20 years from now these states will find industries requiring educated workers will be leaving the state, while industries requiring uneducated workers will find cheap labor.

Part of the result is that American Citizens with no viable skills will be taking under the table jobs that currently go to illegal immigrants.

This isn't the death of America, just the death of education in Idaho and any other states that follow this absurd lead. Unless this movement spreads to the federal level, then what we'll see is an increase in the education and income gap between red states and blue states. Red states, lacking educated workers, will have higher poverty, drug use, unwed pregnancy and crime rates than blue states.

Here comes the genius. Prison workers often get a pittance for their labor. They're basically slave labor pools. Patriot missiles are assembled in part by US prison labor. As the crime rates in red states increase in proportion to the impending rise in poverty and unemployment, there will be a swelling in the prison population. The end result will be a massive slave labor pool right here in the USA. At that point the intellectual aspects of commerce and industry will have moved to the blue states, but the manufacturing and product assembly will be happening in the red states. We'll be able to take much of the manufacturing work currently being done in China and bring it back to the USA to be done by our own slave labor pool.

In short, this isn't the death of America, just the enslavement of the red states for the benefit of the blue states. I find it sadly ironic that many racist white Americans are voting for bills that will enslave their children and grandchildren, and they're doing so largely because the black man in the white House scares them.

Bacon in the News!

The article More to bacon than breakfast takes a few standard recipes and adds bacon. The Spinach and Bacon Quiche sounds a lot like a recipe my wife has prepared in the past. I can attest from personal experience that adding bacon to quiche is a tasty addition. I would further suggest that replacing the spinach with shredded broccoli works wonders.

While I use bacon drippings to make soap, ‘Simmer on you beans' talks about cooking corn bread on bacon drippings, a tasty way to add some flavor and spice to the corn bread. While this works best for savory applications as opposed to sweet ones, the use of bacon in things like chocolate suggests considerable flexibility of even bacon cooked corn bread.

Rising grain prices however may cause a spike in the cost of bacon, as the Irish are determined to encourage pig farming, even as New Zealand farmers are winning awards with free-range pigs.

Looking over an MMS study

I've been having some debates with folks about MMS on youtube. I was sent a link to the results for a "study" conducted on using MMS to treat cancer. I read the results, and sent the following reply to the person who had sent it to me:

http://www.alternative-cancer-care.com/MMS_Cancer_Study.html

"I know its not rigorous"

The sample size was only 24 people. This is tiny, too small to be considered anything other than a "pilot study." In real medical research sample sizes this small are never used for anything other than determining if a larger study is justified.

According to the section "Drawbacks of MMS Cancer Patient Study" there was no verification of ANYTHING the subjects reported. It was all self-reported.

There was no placebo and no control. Placebo and control groups are tough in cancer treatment, but generally the control consists of people taking a different medication or following an alternate treatment plan.

There was no consistency in the cancers being treated or the conventional treatment methods involved. If they wanted results worth publishing they should have stuck to people with similar cancers and similar treatment regiments. It looks like easily treated cancers were mixed in with difficult to impossible to treat cancers.

Despite claiming a measly 2 positive results out of a sample of 24, if you read the actual analysis of the "positive" results only 1 person actually recovered. The other "positive" result was that the person wasn't dead yet. We have no medical data on the "positive" respondent's claims about the nature of their cancer or the actual recovery. What's more, the one positive result stated "The original surgeon thought this was a 10-12 year tumor growth before diagnosis." That sounds more like a benign (non-cancerous tumor) than cancer. The study MADE A POINT of stating that the remission had not been confirmed, only that the patient "Believed" the tumor to be gone. With only one success, and a dicey one at that, we can't rule out spontaneous remission or the patient merely being in denial or mistaken about their cancer, if they even HAD cancer to begin with.

The claimed number of cures is identical to the claimed number of deaths. Given the mixed bag of cancers involved this is not surprising,

No effort is made to compare the results to the survival rates for people with similar cancers undergoing similar conventional treatments. This means the "results" are offered in a vacuum. There's no baseline for comparison. It's like saying "Michael is 1.4 Smoots tall" without providing any frame of reference for how big a "Smoot" is.

Even IF the results could be extrapolated for the entire population, saving 1 life out of 24 for a mixed bag of random cancers isn't exactly newsworthy. For comparison take a look at this chart of cancer survival rates by cancer type:

http://rex.nci.nih.gov/NCI_Pub_Interface/raterisk/rates28.html

The chart is not as detailed as I would like. Detection stage is averaged, so early detection cases with higher survival rates are averaged in with late stage cancers. The aggressiveness of treatment is also averaged. Earlier detection is considered one of the reasons breast cancer and prostate cancer survival rates are going up.

The only actual recovery listed in the MMS study was a breast cancer case. Breast cancer had an 80.4 survival rate from 1983 to 1990. This puts conventional medicine at a significant advantage over MMS. Many of the cancers on that list have survival rated in the 80% to 90% range, most are at least over 50%.

This means, if you use the results from the MMS study and compare it to the actual five year survival rates for cancer patients in the real world, it's one of the WORST cancer treatments out there!

I recommend checking out this Mayo Clinic article on what cancer survival rates MEAN for a person's prognosis:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cancer/CA00049

Benihana's food must REALLY suck

It's not often that the news of bad food in a Kuwaiti restaurant reaches the states, but when a restaurant manager sues over a bad review the news is going to get around. Mike Servo, manager of the Benihana restaurant in Kuwait, wants $18,000 in damages because Mark Makhoul didn't think much of their grilled chicken.

I've never eaten in the restaurant in question, but if the manager feels the need to sue someone for writing a lackluster review then it raises certain questions about the quality of the food. Specifically it leads me to conclude that the food must be pretty terrible if the manager needs to use a lawsuit to try and defend it.

Mark Makhoul's bad review is just one person's opinion. A manager suing over that opinion suggests to me that Mike Servo has NO confidence in the quality of the restaurant and prefers to shout down critics rather than address the underlying issues. If I'm ever in Kuwait, I'll be sure to avoid the Benihana chain.

Criticizing what he doesn't understand

Most sensible people will at least do a little research into a topic before they offer their opinion on it in writing. Mormon blogger William Monahan however is not burdened by the need for pesky things like facts and accurate information and instead chooses to dive in head first, armed only with vague notions and shoddy straw-man images of what he's attacking. The result reads more like a parody of conservative Mormonism than anything else. Let's take a look at Mr. Monahan's mental meanderings for a good laugh.

Please note, the use of text from his writing constitutes fair use under US law.

A world crazy for magic and divination will ultimately reject the majesty of the divine.

Tell that to devotees of Catholic Mystics.

While loveable vampires, werewolves and the Harry Potter craze may be titillating broomstick fiction, their supernatural romps are anything but super.


There is a reason for the exploding popularity of 1-800-PSYCHICS and the invasion of ghouls, magic and wizards. Predictably, the natural man substitutes the mystical for his Maker, growing fat on his own self-pleasing conceit. Thus conceited, he is free to cannibalize fantasy for faith.

The main problem with this bold assertion is that is presumes that people who are turning to Twilight and Harry Potter for entertainment are necessarily turning away from God in the process. Unless Monahan offers some actual evidence that this is the case, he might as well be attacking NASCAR or random prime time television programs for luring people away from God. The mere fact that a particular form of entertainment does not explicitly glorify God does not mean it is drawing you away from God.

Dungeons and Dragons


Some years ago I set apart a young man for full-time missionary service. Within two days of his arrival at the Missionary Training Center, he had to be sent home. He was suffering withdrawal symptoms from an addiction to "Dungeons and Dragons," a popular video game. Because he was engrossed in levels of magic, he was unable to level his focus on the magic of his mission.

I call bullshit on this claim. For starters calling Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) a video game makes it clear Monahan doesn't even know what D&D is. I'll give Monahan the benefit of the doubt and assume he's talking about a computer game that's either based upon D&D or is at least somewhat wizard and orc related, as opposed to something sci-fi related. Second, what kind of "withdrawal" is he talking about?

The "levels of magic" line is an early clue to just how poorly Monahan understands what he's attacking. It's the first indication that he doesn't understand the difference between fantasy and reality. He does not appear to realize that people who play Dungeons and Dragons aren't actually learning magic spells. They aren't actually summoning demons and the books about the game do not give directions on how to do either. This fundamental misunderstanding will be reinforced in the rest of his essay.

Sadly, some fans of the dark arts get sucked into the occult. They confuse mysticism with miracle, and spiritualism with spirituality. Perhaps their days would be better spent searching the scriptures than groping cobwebbed halls and creaky staircases.

Ahh, here we see the problem. Monahan is one of this ignorant idiots who, knowing nothing about role playing games other than what his pastor told him, is convinced that playing D&D means you learn actual magic spells. He's equating computer games with trying to learn magic. This is a bit like claiming all churches crucify a parishioner at Good Friday services, or that the NBA beheads the coach of the losing team, just like the Aztec game that inspired Basketball.

The next section of his ramblings, "The evolution of horror and the occult" is nothing more than a list of a few horror movies. Aside from a few template claims like "Taro readings were common and Ouija boards dotted the teenage party scene" there isn't much of interest there.

When the seedy creeps from the shadows


What was once reserved for drunken sailors and seedy dives is now mainstream

Wait, is he about to diverge from attacking D&D to claim public intoxication and syphilis riddled whores are now mainstream?

Sadly, no, but such a claim would make more sense than the rest of his essay.

Like all things seedy, vampires and wizards operate best from the shadows. They are repelled by the sunlight. Perhaps that is why millions of fans line up at the box office at midnight. Enough of vampires.

Does this guy think vampires are real? He seems to think D&D players are learning real magic. Does he think vampires are real too?

Where are the dentists? It's common sense: no pointy eyeteeth, no blood sucking forays into innocent necks.

That was random. I'm sure it made sense in his wee little head. Seriously, what point is he trying to make with that line?

And wizards? I'd rather fight evil with the character of Christ than a novelist's flawed characters.

Of course a novelist's characters are flawed. Perfect characters who never make mistakes are BORING to read about. Monahan seems to have real trouble separating entertainment from reality. D&D players are not ACTUALLY trying to fight demons. "Lord of the Rings" fans are not ACTUALLY trying to smuggle gold rings into volcanoes with the aid of wizards who have a tendency to die and come back with cooler clothing.

Pop culture is on the move


Pop culture is always on the move, but the motion sickness can make even the elect of God queasy. Just because something gyrates for attention doesn't mean we should pay attention.

Clearly, Monahan is not a Lady GaGa fan.

All kidding aside, this is more an issue of a youth oriented culture than anything demonic or occult. The youth oriented culture tends to annoy most people over the age of 35, but trying to cast that cultural flaw as an epic battle between good and evil is misleading. It's also idiotic and will do nothing to resolve the problem.

The net result of a world thirsting to mainstream the seedy is an unquenchable thirst for more, thus parching the seeds of faith.

Here we see that Monahan is apparently ignorant of Biblical text. After Jonah was vomited up by the sea creature that swallowed him, he went on to, against his will, minster to what was allegedly one of the most evil cities around. You know what they did? They repented. If Monahan was any kind of an evangelist he'd see a culture awash in pleasures of the flesh as a fertile ground. If worldly pleasures really are as spiritually empty as Monahan is likely to have been taught, then the current culture is one ripe for God's word. In a world of drowning people, Monahan is complaining that people need life preservers while sitting on a stack of them.

This guy appears to be more interested in complaining about there being un-Mormon entertainment in the world than doing anything to try and save souls. I have a quick tip for Monahan, spewing a bunch of nonsense that misrepresents the people you're trying to save is NOT going to win anyone over, it just makes you look like an ignorant, hypocritical ass.

The prophets warn


For centuries the prophets have warned us against magic, divination and the occult. "There shall not be found among you any that ... useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch ... or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. ..." (Duet.18:10-12)

If Dungeons and Dragons players or horror movie fans were actually trying to cast spells or summon demons that verse might have been relevant. All Monahan has managed to do here is alienate anyone who actually HAS played Dungeons and Dragons. They know from personal experience that Monahan's essay is nonsense.

The sad byproduct of a world entranced by magic, vampires and ghosts is the more we assault the senses, the less sensitive we become to holy sensations.


Fans of the genre cannot escape God's warnings by claiming vicarious thrills in fiction.

They can however dismiss Monahan, as he does not appear to understand the difference between reading a fiction book about witches and deciding to gut a cat and try to read it's entrails to see who will win the next Superbowl. Watching "The Witches of Eastwick" is not the start of a slippery slope that will lead to you getting knocked up by a demon. Most people can tell the difference between entertainment and reality. Those who cannot have mental disorders that need to be treated.

Warning to parents


Parents who wink at mystical fantasy as "innocent fun" may be closing a blind eye to the not so innocent. There is something irresistible to our youth about escaping reality, and when they do, fantasy can become their unintended jailer.

Citation needed. I want to see the psychology research that shows playing Dungeons and Dragons leads to people rejecting the religion with which they were raised. I want some actual data and not the ramblings of a man who can't be bothered to differentiate between watching a horror movie and summoning a demon.

By guiding our children’s interests to an abiding interest in the divine, they avoid the shadows where bad things happen.

Ahh, the "Bury their head in the sand" guide to parenting. Instead of raising kids who can deal with the real world, they raise kids who are often shattered when they venture beyond the safe borders of the social playpen their parents construct.

I'm sorry, but I want my son to be able to deal with the real world, not hide from it.

Mysticism is not miracle, and howling for the undead is not a prayer for life eternal.

Again, we see that Monahan can't tell the difference between entertainment and active participation in the occult. His inability to differentiate between fantasy and reality is troubling.

While we can't protect our youth from every devious thing the world offers, we can offer the armor of God in the safety of a gospel-centered home.

Here we are near the end of Monahan's drivel an he has yet to actually give people a reason to see D&D as a threat, other than his inability to separate fantasy from reality.

The power of prayer, the sacrifice of service, the iron will of the iron rod: These are things that produce faith leading to Jesus.


These things are not magic, but their transforming effect is truly magical

I know plenty of Christian and Jewish people who play Dungeons and Dragons. It has not hurt their faith that I can see. Of course, unlike Monahan, they're capable of separating reality from fantasy.

William Monahan is a 1980 graduate of BYU Law School. He practices law in Gilbert, Ariz. A former Phoenix stake president, he serves on the high council for the Queen Creek Chandler Heights Stake.

That's right, this drivel was brought to us by a graduate of the The Brigham Young University Law School. It looks like Monahan has lived in a Mormon cocoon for his entire life. You'd think a lawyer would want to actually learn something about what he's attacking before he attacks it. I hope whatever Monahan does with his law degree involves more competent research than his babbling about religion.

Quinoa Spaghetti with Chicken and Yam Sauce

It was 9:00 at night. I had just finished removing the labels from some empty wine bottles so I could reuse them to bottle my home made prickly pear mead. I was standing by the stove. A back burner was rendering the fat from two pounds of bacon so I could use it to make soap this weekend. A front burner was simmering ketchup on the stove. I was lamenting the fact I'd accidentally turned the ketchup into BBQ sauce by adding too much molasses. I was trying to work out a way to de-BBQ the sauce when it occurred to me I haven't been blogging much about my kitchen adventures.

I think I'll start with what I made for dinner tonight. Sadly I have no pictures handy, having neglected to take some at dinner. Perhaps I'll take one if I have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Dinner consisted of quinoa spaghetti with chicken and yam sauce.

Serves 3 to 4.

Total cook time: 20 to 30 minutes.

Ingredients:
1 package quinoa or other spaghetti
1 chicken breast
1 green bell pepper
1 medium onion
1.5 cups frozen yam, yellow squash, butternut squash or cauliflower puree
2 tsp chicken seasoning of your choice
1/4 tsp salt if the seasoning contains none

1. Slice the chicken breast into slightly smaller than bight sized pieces. Sprinkle the pieces with salt and the seasoning. Set aside.
2. Heat the water for cooking the spaghetti. The goal is to have the spaghetti finish around the time the sauce is ready.
3. Dice the onion.
4. Core the bell pepper and slice it into bite sized pieces.
5. Put the diced onion in a 12 inch skillet with 2 tsp olive or vegetable oil. Cook on medium-high heat until it starts to turn golden.
6. Add the chicken. Cook until the largest chicken pieces show no pink when sliced.
7. Add the bell pepper. Cook until it begins to soften, about 3 to 4 minutes.
8. Add the spaghetti to the pot and the frozen puree to the skillet. The spaghetti should take about 8 to 10 minutes to cook, which should be just enough time for the frozen puree to melt and heat.
9. Stir the sauce periodically.
10. When the pasta is cooked, drain and mix with the sauce. Serve hot, with a few grates of pepper and some grated hard cheese.

Enjoy!

Mother Forces Her 5-Year-Old Daughter to Wax Her Eyebrows

For the woman in this video, the child is not her flesh and blood, a human being she's raising in the hopes of producing a healthy, well-adjusted adult but merely a tool for vicariously re-living her own glory days. The child is a means for aggrandizing the mother, raw meat to feed her ego. The child is reacting badly to having her eyebrows waxed is not a cause for compassion or maternal concern, but annoyance at a tool not responding in a convenient matter.

Some idiot has decided to castrate Huck Finn

Disclaimer: I am a big Mark Twain fan.

Some idiot has decided to castrate Huck Finn.

This is not the first time someone has tried to censor Huck Finn and it won't be the last.

Mark Twain wrote the book AFTER slavery had ended. One of the things it did was capture a time and place for future generations so we could SEE how ugly and vile racism could be. Censoring it whitewashes the past, making the evils and oppression committed against slaves seem less vile than they really were.

Huck Finn is one of the most banned books in history. It was banned in many Southern states when it first came out, not because it dropped the N-Bomb about as often as people actually used it, but because it offended white sensibilities by portraying Jim as a better human being and father than Huck's own Pappy. At one point Huck has an internal debate about the morality of helping a slave escape. He was taught by the preacher that what he was doing constituted stealing and he'd go to Hell for it. In the end Huck puts his loyalty to Jim ahead of his own soul and decides that if he has to go to Hell for helping Jim, then he'll go to Hell.

Back in the 1990's "The Oxford Mark Twain" was published, a multi-volume collection of the Twain books that were published in his lifetime. They contained introductions and afterwords by famous authors and scholars. I highly recommend going to your local library and checking out Toni Morrison's introduction to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The butcher "modernizing" (Castrating) Huck Finn is described in some sources as a "Mark Twain scholar." I can't see how a serious student of Mark Twain's work could seriously consider gutting Huck Finn to be a good thing. This isn't a case of removing some of the anti-Indian racism in "Roughing It" because it's embarrassing, this is vivisecting a vital component of Huck Finn for the sake of an abstract ivory tower fantasy of political correctness.

I foresee two groups being fans of this neutered Hick Finn.

1. Hand-writing, OCD academics and activists who are more concerned with word counting than the actual content of the piece.

2. Racists and white supremacists who are happy to see the racism of the past toned down so it doesn't seem as bad to modern readers.

English Muffins

In December of 2010 I started making my own English muffins. My initial efforts were based on the recipe English muffins and crumpets: an (almost) shared recipe. I've since made some modifications and am getting increasingly better results. Here is the modified recipe I used for my last and thus far best, batch. Each step only takes a few minutes. The wait time between steps in absurdly flexible making this a surprisingly convenient recipe despite the multiple stages.

Mix:
Warm water, 1 1/2 cups
Yeast, 2 tsp

Sugar, 1 tsp
Let yeast "proof" for a few minutes. Once you see bubbles mix in:
Bread flour, 2 cups.


Cover and set aside for 2 to 24 hours or longer. The longer you let it rest the more of a sourdough flavor you'll get. You can use an active sourdough starter instead of the mix above, but you may need to increase the flour by a few tablespoons in the next step.

Add:
Flour, 1 cup
Salt, 2 tsp (The original recipe called 2.5 tsp salt, but my wife and I found that too salty.)
1/4 to 1/2 Cup grated cheese. (Optional, I prefer extra sharp cheddar)

Knead well and set aside for 30 minutes or more. You may need to add a tablespoon or two of water to get the new flour and salt to incorporate. I've found a three to five minute knead works better than mixing with a spoon. You can use a dough hook and a mixer.

Roll out the dough and cut into rounds. A water cup or clean tuna can works nicely. You can let the rounds rise for 10 to 20 minutes, but this is optional.

Heat a pan, griddle or cast iron skillet to medium-low heat. Add a bit of oil or butter if not using non-stick or cast iron cookware. Cover and cook the muffins for 8-10 minutes per side until lightly browned. You can reduce the cook time by increasing the heat, but anything above medium to medium-high heat risks blackening the muffins. The rule of thumb from the original recipe was to cook the muffins a bit cooler than you would cook pancakes with the same cookware.

Let the muffins cool on a wire rack. If you eat them while still hot, the cheese will still be a bit gooey inside, almost as if the muffins had already been buttered. Refrigerate or freeze any muffins you don't plan to eat within the next 4 to 5 days. They freeze very well.

Home Made Candles

What do I do when home during a power outage, using candles for light? Make more candles of course. I used to make candles when I was younger so this was familiar territory. I used some paraffin lying around in the basement, a lump of beeswax and the melted bits form the candles I'd been burning. You can also use crayon fragments for color, but I didn't do that this time around.

Merry Christmas!

The audience loves this so much, there's a 15 to 20 second interruption for applause in the middle of the song. This is NOT your average "12 Days of Christmas"

Writing a Poison Pen Letter to CNN

Dr. Sanjay Gupta was once tapped as a potential Surgeon General. Today I learned it would have been somewhat catastrophic if he'd gotten the job, as he's easily swayed by con men, psychic surgeons and faith healers. On December 22, 2010 this idiot used CNN's AC360 as a forum for promoting the faith healer and psychic surgeon "John of God."



I sent CNN the following comment to express my disgust at their promotion of a faith healer and their inability to do even rudimentary reporting. Apparently CNN, like Oprah, feels its more important to produce a "feel good" story that gives false hope than to find and report the truth.

I'm writing to express my disgust over Dr Gupta promoting the con artist "John of God" on a December 22, 2010 episode of AC360. I found the alleged investigation to be shallow and pathetic. Is this really what journalism has come to at CNN, the uncritical promotion of a known con artist with nothing more than a few vague bits of hand waving and pretense at MAYBE having some doubts?

"John of God" is a faith healer, a con man whose antics have been vivisected by people who actually investigated the man. The only positive to come out of that promotion piece is knowing it's a damn good thing Gupta didn't get the Surgeon General job and anything he has to say about medicine or science in the future can be dismissed as the babbling of an ignorant and easily fooled kook.

CNN has a web form for sending them letters.

You can learn more about Sanjay Gupta and his promotion of quackery at the links below:

Faith-Healer 'John of God' featured on CNN's AC360

John of God on CNN with Dr Gupta

You can learn more about Oprah's promotion of "Psychic Surgeon" John of God on the December 01, 2010 episode of the The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe Podcast.

Racists Angry Over Thor's Black Sidekick.

One of my favorite things about new movies are the flame wars over casting. People grouse about the race of the actors, the fact that the actors portraying parent / child relationships don't have a large enough age gap to make it plausible, drug problems the actors have had in the past and just about everything else you can think of. For some reason people seem to forget that Hollywood routinely does things like cast Charleston Heston as a Jew and still produce a few really good movies.

Despite all the grousing, the nit-picking idiocy is generally unfounded. Yes, white supremacists and racist assholes got bent out of shape at the addition of a black character to "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves", but let's be honest here, Morgan Freeman pretty much carried the non-villain scenes. Without Freeman and Alan Rickman the film would have been virtually unwatchable, even if some racist idiot in congress groused about having to "explain why Sherwood forest was integrated" to his 9 year old daughter.

Enter Thor and the news that a black man will play a Norse God in a supporting role. Thor himself isn't being played by a black man, but Heimdall is going to be far darker than most the people who ever worshiped him. Theologically, there is a vague rationalization. If these were in fact Gods, instead of imaginary friends created by Norse people to get them through cold winter nights, then it makes sense for the races of the Gods to reflect to a certain extent the races of the people of Earth. More to the point, the Marvel character of Thor is already pretty well divorced from Norse mythology.

Regardless, people are outraged. Neo-Pagans who claim to worship Thor aren't the ones who are outraged. Minority rights activists aren't outraged that the main black character to be announced is only a glorified bouncer. No, outrage from those groups would at least make some vague sort of sense. Conservative Christians are the ones who are outraged a Norse God is being played by a black man.

Take a moment to wrap your head around that. Christians are upset over the race of an actor in a movie about Norse Mythology. At first glance that makes about as much sense as Ted Haggard getting bent out of shape over the a Bollywood movie where Shiva is being played by an Indian actor who isn't from the Brahmin caste.

The Council of Conservative Citizens web site has the following article:

Marvel Studios declares war on Norse mythology

Norse mythology gets a multi-cultural remake in the upcoming movie titled “Thor,” by Marvel studios. It’s not enough that Marvel attacks conservative values and promotes the left-wing, now mythological Gods must be re-invented with black skin.

It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves. An upcoming movie, based on the comic book Thor, will give Norse mythology an insulting multi-cultural make-over. One of the Gods will be played by Hip Hop DJ Idris Elba.

The online campaign to boycott Thor by Marvel Studios has begun. Visit Boycott-Thor.com

Keep in mind, this outrage is coming from people who, due to their religious views, are unlikely to see the movie anyway. People who were not going to see the movie because it depicts a pagan religion are calling for a boycott because one of the actors is black. As you can see in the quote above, they try to write this off as outrage at multiculturalism, but there's no good way to whitewash it any anything other than plain old racism. A "white" character will be played by a black man and these jackasses have gotten their panties in a knot over it.

At least the overt and admitted racists over at the stormfront forums have the intellectual integrity to admit they're pissed off for racist reasons. The fact that white supremacists are displaying more honesty and integrity than the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC) doesn't bode well for the CofCC.

My Oddest Beer Yet

Last year I made a pale IPA with artificial spruce flavoring. The bottling date was August 1, 2009. Most of it was consumed within the first few months. It was novel, tasty and well worth repeating. I saved a few bottles to see how the brew aged. Last night, December 15, 2010, I opened one.

A year ago the spruce and the hops balanced nicely. As experienced brewers are likely suspecting as they read this, the hop aroma and flavor had faded over the past year, leaving the spruce VERY prominent. The tasting notes I wrote included the text "Strong spruce flavor and nose with aspects of pine pitch. This is NOT a beer for aging."

Fearing the remaining two or three bottles in the basement would end up down the drain instead of in my belly, I sprinkled some cinnamon over the beer to see if that helped. The dash of spice took a virtually undrinkable beer reminiscent of sucking a hunk of conifer into a pleasant, light Winter beer. It was more like drinking a frothy cinnamon beverage next to the Christmas tree, as opposed to chewing on said tree.

I offered some to my lovely wife, but she declined. We did however discuss the beer before going to bed.

"Honey, you're weird," she said.

"How so?" I asked.

"Spruce and cinnamon beer. Face it, you're weird."

"No argument there."

What is Anonymous?

"Anonymous" consists of a collection of people who act based upon conversations on the marginally moderated 4chan.org /b/ forum. /b/ is the site's "Random" board. It usually features pornography and efforts to get 4chan readers to harass a particular individual. Most of the time these efforts consist of "I hate this bitch, here's her facebook / home number, make her suffer!" These are usually met with the reply of "Anonymous is not your personal army" and a collective "meh."

If, however, kittens are being tortured, rabbits crushed, puppies thrown into rivers or the Internet censored, 4chan declares war.

A few key hackers will post download links to botnet clients to turn your PC into a zombie for a DDoS attack on targeted web sites. At various points over the last few days, Mastercard, Paypal and Visa have all been unable to process any transactions due to these attacks.

The better researchers will dig up loads of information to be used in tracking down the offenders. This, for example, is how the woman who tossed a cat in a trash can in the UK was tracked down.

The war will escalate until, I kid you not, the warriors grow bored or move onto something else. Frequently this happens after a sufficiently large laugh comes out of the exchange. For example, an 11 year old girl was posting topless photos of herself to /b/ and links to videos where she talked about using a gun to make a "Brain Slushie" out of anyone who gave her grief. Anonymous tracked down her home phone and made it very clear to her parents what kind of person she was being. They were not kind. They were raging assholes. The issue died when her father, displaying a complete disregard for the fact that his 11 year old started this by posting nudie photos of herself online, posted a video where he threatened 4chan. Normally this would only escalate things, but he made such an idiot of himself Anonymous just laughed at him, treating his "Consequences will never be the same (NSFW!)" video as the best possible punch line to the entire affair.

If you had to translate Anonymous into D&D terms, the best match for their alignment would be "Chaotic asshole."

Side note, most of the porn on /b/ falls into one of the following categories:

1. Chubby porn.
2. Female 4chan readers posting their own topless photos.
3. Shemale porn.
4. "Trap" porn, referring to young effeminate men who can pass for women when properly tarted up.
5. "Dumps" where someone starts dumping their favorite porn photos, most of which were found on 4han to begin with.

Every few hours some idiot tries to start a child pornography thread. The moderators step in quickly, lock the thread, delete it and allegedly turn the IP addresses of the idiots who posted the garbage over to the FBI.

4chan is hosted on the USA. Its founder, Moot, is a US citizen. No one really knows HOW the site has avoided being taken down by the US government. The best guess is that that FBI finds it too rich a source of information on child porn producers and traders.

It's safe to say that none of the conservative pundits have ever looked at 4chan themselves. If they had, they'd be decrying /b/ as part of the gay agenda. You can't go more than a few pages on /b/ before hitting a tranny thread. It can be quite jarring until you become desensitized to the sight of a 6 foot tall ebony black transsexual with implants felating herself.

Then again, given the Republican track record of the last few years, they may know EXACTLY what's on /b/ and are keeping it quiet so as to not dry up one of their favorite sources of spank bank imagery.
Reply

Salt Water Quackery

*sigh*

ASEA Scam?

$40 for a bottle of salt water and a long list of mumbo-jumbo claiming it's more than just salt water. Oh, and trying to hide the fact that it's table salt by calling it by the chemical name sodium chloride.

I'd start bottling filtered tap water with a few teaspoons of salt and claiming it's a less expensive, but equally effective version of the quackery, but I have morals, something the folks at ASEA appear to lack.

As temping as it is to call it a sodium chloride water scam, but it's not quite accurate to call it a "scam." Calling it a scam implies the people selling or manufacturing it KNOW the health claims are a pile of nonsense. I have no evidence, other than the evasive nature of the swill on their web site, to demonstrate they KNOW they're selling quackery.

The lack of peer-reviewed, placebo controlled, clinical trials with a non-trivial sample size, combined with the complete lack of feasibility for their claims makes a label of "Quackery" quite accurate.

If it walks like a duck...

Christopher Maloney is a quack

Just to make sure there's no ambiguity about it, Christopher Maloney is a licensed, board certified quack, but a quack regardless.

Socialist Catalonian Party Vote - Woman Has Orgasm (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

Some people take their civic duties quite seriously. I think this woman goes a bit overboard.

Adam Deen, Evolution and Censorship

What do you do when the opposition has completely destroyed your arguments? How do you respond when they reveal your sources to actually be saying the opposite of what you claim?

Censorship of course!

The Sound of Science

I'm attaching this to every youtube PM I exchange I have with a quack or pseudoscience nutjob for the foreseeable future.

GOP Candidate: Church-State Separation Came From Hitler?

The separation of church and state has been a political idea for a LONG time. In the west the idea got started among the masses when the British tired of the wars over Catholicism vs Protestantism. It wasn't even an original idea for the founding fathers of the USA when the Constitution was written. Claiming Hitler had anything to do with originating the idea is comically ignorant.



Update:

In the comment below, the eternally ignorant "DM" claims:

And the Pope is 100% correct: The Nazis and the atheists both wish to ABOLISH FAITH....

Reality however conspires to prove both him and the Pop wrong. You see, Hitler was NOT an atheist.

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
- Adolf Hitler, 1943

"The task of preserving and advancing the highest humanity, given to this earth by the benvolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission"
- Adolf Hitler, 1943

"A campaign against the "godless movement" and an appeal for Catholic support were launched Wednesday by Chancellor Adolf Hitler's forces."
- Associated Press, 1933

In a speech delivered in Berlin, October 24, 1933, Hitler stated: "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."

Let's be blunt here. Hitler hated atheists and considered them enemies of the state.

Note that the "National Socialism" in this next quote refers to the NAZI party, not Communism as practiced in the USSR.

In a speech delivered at Koblenz, August 26, 1934 Hitler states: "There may have been a time when even parties founded on the ecclesiastical basis were a necessity. At that time Liberalism was opposed to the Church, while Marxism was anti-religious. But that time is past. National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity. The Church's interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles."

Anyone claiming Hitler was an atheist or was motivated by atheism is, in making that claim, revealing that they are either painfully and pathetically ignorant of the topic upon which they speak, or are perfectly happy to deliberately lie to advance their agenda. Given the current Pope's past of deliberately hiding pedophiles to shield them from the legal consequences of raping children, my guess is that he's intentionally lying. I don't know about DM. My suspicion is that he's just an ignorant idiot, as that theory is more consistent with his other comments.

Is fixedearth.com the new Timecube?

fixedearth.com is full of some really idiotic claims. For example:

"I) Instead of granting the Copernican assumptions of a rotating earth & a stationary sun, one can keep a rotating earth & assume that the sun orbits the earth annually.  "

One big problem with such an assertion is that it doesn't explain night and day. If the Earth is stationary and the sun orbits the Earth once a year, then a single night /  day cycle would take not 24 hours, but 365.4 of what we now call "days." We'd have 6 months of darkness and 6 months of light. In order for the day / night cycle we have now to be maintained, the Sun would have to orbit the Earth once every 24 hours, or be in a fixed position while the Earth rotated beneath it.

Most of the content of fixedearth.com is little more than incoherent rants. For example:

There is a third fact which reveals a striking contrast to these assumption-based Models falsely claiming to be "Science".  ("Science: TO KNOW". "Assumed: ADOPTED TO DECEIVE").  This third fact relates solely to the Biblical Model of the Earth and the Sun.  In this Model no assumptions and theories are required at all! Worldwide, all of us can see and photograph the sun, moon, and stars going around the earth daily.[1] This is KNOWN SCIENCE with real math behind all eclipses, space shots, etc.  

Really now, if this kind of drivel represents the height of Geocentric thought then it's no wonder that among scientists the theory died out a few hundred years ago.

 The Biblical Model is the only truly scientific Model. It is time for every truth seeker to ignore the scoffers and insist on the facts. The facts are that the Biblical Model of a completely motionless Earth with the Sun, Moon, and Stars going around daily is true science requiring no assumptions. All else is from Satan, the father of lies.

The rant above ignores the fact that an Earth centered solar system does not comply with any observable facts about the motions of the planets or the observations and achievements of the space program.

Why Geocentrism is Wrong

There's a Geocentrists convention being held to try and claim the sun orbits the Earth.

This depresses me greatly. as it's an indication of yet ANOTHER way the American education system has failed catastrophically. One could ask "Well, how would an Earth centered solar system even look different?" Here's a few examples of how:

Starting Points

None of the probes we've sent into space would have reached another planet, as all the navigation calculations done assume a massive sun in the center of the solar system and planets that orbit it. The current calculations of satellite orbits would simply not work. Instead of the Moon as our main satellite, we'd also have the Sun and all the planets to contend with.

The orbits of the planets would look more like that of the moon and would be far easier to predict. The machinations needed to predict the positions of the planets with an Earth centered solar system are maddening.

We'd see no parallax when observing stars during different seasons. While the parallax is small and requires sensitive instruments to detect, it is very, very consistent.

The Sun, the Moon and Solar Eclipses

The sun would have to be much, much smaller for the Earth to keep it in orbit, well below the lower threshold for it to contain enough gas to ignite into an active star. As a result it would need a very different fuel source than what we believe it has now.

Solar eclipses would be a different beast. We have a near perfect fit now because of how the size and distance of the sun gives it the appearance of being the same size as the moon. The moon is already about 1/4 the Earth's diameter. Unless the sun were in the same orbit as the moon it would have to be either further away and larger, or closer and smaller. Being the same distance would mean there were no solar eclipses. The further away it gets the larger it has to be to maintain the illusion of identical sizing so vital to a solar eclipse.

Either way, the sun would have to stay pretty close to lunar size to not escape Earth orbit. This would put it close enough to the moon to keep it pretty much molten, at least during close passes. The moon would not be the unchanging venue we see today but a, active, volcanic place constantly heated by close proximity to the sun.

The sun would cause tides as well. In a sun centered solar system, the Sun is so far away that it's gravitational pull doesn't cause localized tides the way the moon does. A sun small enough to stay in Earth orbit and yet appear the same form Earth's surface would cause tides. This would mean tidal forces would not be determined by the moon's orbit alone, but by a combination of lunar and solar orbits. Daytime would ALWAYS be high tide and days when you could see the moon and the sun would have particularly high tides. Tidal pool ecosystems would either not exist or be adapted to a highly irregular high / low tide pattern.

We'd See Differently, if we Were Here at all

None of that really matters as we'd probably be bathed in lethal radiation. A sun small enough to be kept in Earth orbit yet bright enough to produce as much light as the one we see would probably need a nuclear power source involving metal, not a plasma miasma. This means the Earth would probably be a sterile wasteland devoid of life, as it would be bathed in enough nuclear radiation to rip apart most life forms.

The visible spectrum of light would be different. A plutonium reactor for example emits a pale blue light, not the white light we see from our sun. The sun has the wrong color spectrum for self sustaining nuclear reactions in a body small enough to be kept in Earth orbit.

The Outer Solar System

Jupiter would not exist as we've seen it. The super-massive gas giants we've seen with our telescopes and probes would have too much gravity to be kept in orbit by tiny little Earth. They'd have to be much, much smaller, which means our calculations on how to get probes to them would have been so massively incorrect as to prevent the probes from getting there.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. One could easily spend months or years compiling a list of ways an Earth centered solar system would be different from the one we have now. It takes quite a bit of ignorance to try and assert that the Earth is the center of the solar system.

Update: Venus

If the Earth was the center of the solar system the current calculations for predicting a Transit of Venus simply wouldn't work, if transits still happened at all. Remember we're dealing with a sun slightly larger than the moon, orbiting a distance not that far beyond it. Venus would either be a large planet far beyond the sun's orbit, or a much smaller satellite inside that orbit. If Venus were further away then a Transit of Venus would NEVER HAPPEN. If it were inside the orbit of the sun then Transits would happen with far greater frequency than they do now. If the orbit of Venus were irregular enough to account for the rarity of a Transit of Venus then we would be seeing it as frequently as we see a comet, not regularly enough for ancient cultures to have dubbed it the "Morning Star."

Indeed, explaining a Transit of Venus AND the frequency with which we see Venus now would require one to conclude that there are actually multiple objects in the solar system that just HAPPEN to have appearances and orbits aligned in JUST the right way as to make them LOOK like they're all the same planet.

Update: Planetary Orbits

The web site jgiesen.de has a model showing side by side comparisons the Heliocentric and geocentric motion of the bright planets. It illustrates how absurdly convoluted the orbits of the planets would be in a geocentric model, if they were to fit the positions of the planets as observed from Earth. As you can see from the animation the geocentric model necessitates the planets not only revolve around the Earth, but move in an additional circle as well. Geocentrism requires additional orbits around unseen objects. Venus, for example, simply can't orbit the Earth directly, but would have to be orbiting something invisible and transparent which was in turn orbiting the Earth. A sun centered solar system actually FITS the observed data using the known laws of physics. Geocentrism on the other hand requires an invisible gravity well for each planet that we can neither see nor detect.

Strange Words: Stopa

Stopa:
Definition:
Politically correct yet still insulting version of "Retarded". Refers to people who are not mentally challenged but act like they are.

A person with Down's Syndrome is not Stopa but most political extremists are.

History:
Created by online malcontents as a response to mental health groups requesting the word "retarded" no longer be used. Stopa replaces the word "Retarded" in insults. Because "Stopa" is so short, it also works as a replacement for "re-re" as a shortened version of "Retarded."

Examples:
Jesus Christ that politician is such a Stopa!"

"That's Stopa grade stupid."

"You are Sooo f***ing Stopa."

"What are you, Stopa??"

WTF Nuke Mecca?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Liars, scum and Halloween

I just finished reading "The Danger of Celebrating Halloween" by blogger Kimberly Daniels. Fark.com also covered this deceitful individual.

She appears to have forgotten the commandment to not bear false witness against your neighbor. She certainly enjoys regurgitating a long list of nonsense about witches. There probably aren't enough pagans in the country for her claim that "most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches" to be even remotely true.

It says a lot about the "faith" of Kimberly Daniels that she has to flat out lie about others to try and make a point.

Here are some choice quotes form this jackass:

"During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches."

Gee, Nestle must employ just about every witch in the country to curse all that candy!

The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes. These activities include:

* Sex with demons
* Orgies between animals and humans
* Animal and human sacrifices
* Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
* Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
* Revel nights
* Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
* Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

Citation needed. Where, for example, are the police reports of all these Satanic human sacrifices?

Jennifer Lopez Public Service Announcement for Pertussis (Whooping Cough)

A wise quote

"Being yelled at by a furious woman should be treated as a semi-formal occasion" -Dexter (The serial killer)

Update:

I find it hilarious that Dennis Markuze aka David Mabus felt compelled to post a comment, adding his usual incoherent ranting and drivel to a quote about furious women. Perhaps David is trying to tell us he's working on becoming Danielle.

I'm also amused by his reference to skeptic and magician James Randi coming out of the closet. It's ooooold news, but then no one could accuse Danielle / David Mabus of being timely or well informed. If Danielle is true to form, the videos probably won't even be related to the point this poor unmedicated schizophrenic is trying to make. IF the videos are related, they'll probably contradict Mr/Ms Mabus.

About the UN

To everyone who is afraid that UN shock troops are going to invade the USA and enslave the people they don't kill:

The UN has no standing army. "UN Troops" are frequently forces borrowed from the US.

Fearing a UN invasion is like being afraid you're going to be violently raped by your paraplegic uncle who is chemically castrated, has no arms and was impotent before the accident that paralyzed him.

Anger and Trolls

Anger at a troll is nothing more than high grade troll chow. They eat it up and feed upon it.

Amber Benson and Anthony Stewart Head singing

I have no words. Go in to about 3:45 to see something that can never be unseen.

A word to the wise

Do not argue with a troll, for he will drag you down to his level and defeat you, because ultimately he will say whatever he wants to say and is not confined by mundane considerations like accuracy, consistency, manners or intellectual integrity. They're kind of like the Religious Right or the far flung left that way

Blimps are scary

Like it or not, blimps can be terrifying things, even the toy ones!

Robert Lanza threatens his critics

Robert Lanza likes to make some outrageous claims. People who have criticized things like Robert Lanza's view of the afterlife or the claims that we don't die, but time simply reboots have received an ultimatum. Robert Lanza has demanded critical blog posts about him be taken down. His response to being criticized appears to be not an effort to address the concerns raised, but to threaten and intimidate the people who raised them.

Doug Humphrey may want your child dead

Doug Humphrey advocates the death of non-Christian Children.

I can't help but wonder if Doug Humphrey ALWAYS advocated the genocide of non-Christian children, or if this is a new development. Notice that the tweet was directed at an atheist. That's right, Doug Humphrey was telling this GodlessAtheist bloke that it would have been more merciful if God had Killed him as a child.

PZ Myers is a bit more gentle to this jackass.

Robert Lanza spews more nonsense

What is this guy smoking anyway?

I'd love to have his job. Toke up, spew a bunch of philosophical and pseudoscience BS, label it an "experiment" or "science" and send it off for publication. Sadly I have to work for a living and produce intelligible content and not transcribed drug trips.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Liar or Moron?

I posted the following reply to a woman who made some rather absurd claims about atheists:

http://answersto.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/the-silliest-atheist-say-or-do

I'm a Christian and I found your flat out lies about atheists to be disgusting and an embarrassment to Christendom.

"Please don’t stand for the all atheist in the world, you don’t know every nature they have. Luckily I had a bump in roads with those silliest atheist that’s why I’m stating this fact in my article and in my vid."

So, you're making fun of one specific person and extrapolating their beliefs to ALL theists?

That's no different than claiming Fred Phelps is representative of all Christians or the 9/11 bombers are representative of all Muslims. You're cherry picking a specific individual who doesn't even represent the mainstream of atheist thought.

"Sadly but most of them are rly practicing this silliness."

That's a flat out lie. Did you not read the passage that tells us not to bear false witness against our neighbors?

"I’m pretty sure that you also had an encounter with this kind as well. but you just disregard that without paying any attention into it."

I've never met an atheist who believed in Satan.

The more I read of your comments the more I suspect you're NOT a Christian, but someone who is out to make Christians look ignorant and stupid. The flat out lies you're telling are too absurd to be written off as mere ignorance on your part.

Terrariums for Kids

I need to file this idea away for when my son is a little older.

Mercola should learn to fact check

Fruit Juice and Honey both get a lot of their sweetening power from fructose. Mercola must be some kind of idiot to recommend fructose heavy products on one hand but advise against consuming it on the other.
About Health
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Muppets: Pöpcørn

My neighbor Totoro becomes a commuter. on Twitpic

My neighbor Totoro becomes a commuter. on Twitpic

The Evolution of Creationism: Part I

Malena Ernman & Martin Fröst in Flight of the Bumblebee

Cycles

What Happens When You Die? Babbling Idiot Suggests Time Simply Reboots

I think this article was GREAT! I printed it up and now I'll have all the manure I need to fertilize my garden this weekend. I think it's hilarious how the author engages in some scientifically illiterate naval gazing and calls it "evidence." Is ALL the "news" on the Huffington Post this shoddy and incompetent or is Robert Lanza an aberration?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

AOL News gives mentally challenged man reporting gig!

The article Stanton Friedman: A Scientist Searches for the Truth of UFOs - AOL News was written by Lee Speigel The article itself is a testament to shoddy, incompetent reporting. Instead of actually asking any challenging questions, Lee Speigel bends over backwards to lend creditability to the wild, unsupported claims of a well known UFO crank. Instead of actually asking for evidence, Lee Speigel bends over backwards to make his subject seem more reliable. This is known as an "Argument for Authority" and its a common, and shoddy form of argument used primarily by people who have no actual evidence to back up their assertions.

Fascinated by the extreme incompetence of Lee Speigel's "reporting" I decided to see what else he had written for AOL News. His bio says:

Lee Speigel
Contributor

Writer, reporter, and paranormal expert Lee Speigel is the former host of NBC Radio's "The Edge of Reality." He's hosted nearly 1,500 programs on unexplained phenomena, and previously worked at Westwood One Radio and ABCNews.com. He is the only person to produce a presentation at the United Nations on the subject of UFOs.

This explains a lot. Lee Speigel is happy to ignore the lack of evidence not for a single interview, but as a fundamental, core facet of his very existence. Let's look at some of his other stories:


Netherlands Town Claims Tallest Lego Tower
Nuclear Physicist Describes Vast UFO Cover-Up
Octopus Tree: Ancient Indian Burial Ground or ... Just a Tree?
No Sea Serpents Here, Says UK's Royal Navy
Russian Governor Says He Made Friends With ETs
Science Embraces Time Travel, Once Stuff of Sci-Fi
Jersey Devil: Horrific Fantasy or Genetic Mutant?
Police Tried to Protect 'Nessie' From Hunters
ET Debate: To Speak or Not to Speak?
Mr. Spock Beams Into Retirement


Lee Speigel's publication history seems to contain mostly nonsense like this. The most hard-hitting, fact based articles I saw was the one about the Leggo tower and Leonard Nimoy's retirement. Most of his writing deals with fringe nonsense with no real evidence to support it.

Lee Speigel would benefit from an introduction to the Skeptoid Podcast. Perhaps he'll learn a thing or two about critical thinking skills.

Eivind Berge's Blog: Fighting with monsters

Eivind Berge's Blog: Fighting with monsters

The nutbar who claimed that rape was a rational response to feminism has asked "Have I become a monster?"

Personally I suspect he's really a deep-cover feminist out to make anyone who opposes feminism look a psychotic, sociopathic, amoral sub-human. Let's be honest here, no sane mind capable of empathizing with other people would honestly think rape could be a rational reaction to difficulty getting a date.

The kind of outright hostility to his fellow human beings portrayed in Eivind's posts depicts not a rational human mind, but a marginally controlled predator. If the posts on his blog honesty reflected his real views, then the question readers should ask is not "if" Eivind has a collection of trophies from animals he's tortured and murdered, but how large that collection is. If this blog reflected Eivind's true beliefs then it would only be a matter of time before he went out to rape a woman, possibly torturing and murdering his victim, if he hasn't done so already.

Eivind is either an uber-feminist troll or a serial killer in training. I think all of us would rather Eivind be a deep cover feminist than the next BTK.

Responding to the "Rape is equality" moron

This was also written about by PZ Myersin the entry You can tell where this is going, but you can hardly believe it when it gets there

Below is my open letter response to the nit-wit who tried to claim that rape was a man's "right."

Eivind,

Women aren't refusing to sleep with you because you don't have enough money.

They're refusing to sleep with you because you're a loser. I'm not saying that as a joke or an insult, but as a simple statement of fact. Feminist bashing, like racism, is a refuge for sad, pathetic people who perceive themselves as failures and need to blame someone. People like Rush Limbaugh hop on the anti-feminist bandwagon because they know banging that drum will draw in the sad, pathetic losers desperate to blame someone other than themselves for their shortcomings.

I don't know what personal truncations drove you to the point where you actually considered rape to be "OK" but feminists have nothing to do with it. You're just using them as a scapegoat to defer responsibility for your own condition.

Man up and grow a pair. Take some personal responsibility for your condition instead of blaming a straw man vision of feminism.

Baby buns rescued from cruelty by Little Furries Rescue

Karen's Spiritual Journey

Preaching to the Liar (Prank Call to a Televangelist)

Crap Hardware

I just sent the following to the tech support for the Flip Ultra:

My Flip refuses to turn on. Changing the batteries had no effect. Pushing or pushing and holding the power button does nothing. Plugging the Flip into the USB port on my or my wife's Mac does nothing. The device is not recognized or detected by either computer even though it has worked fine on both in the past.

As far as I can tell the unit appears to be completely dead despite being only a couple months old and having been subjected to no abuse.

The only response so far:

The reference number for your question is '100514-000574'.

Bee Sting Therapy Returns

The Cultural revolution really trashed Chinese medicine. Most of the doctors were executed or deported along with all the other "intellectuals." When the violence died down the Chinese government started pimping all the folk remedies that had been abandoned when western medicine that actually WORKED had been introduced. It's a shame long discredited nonsense like this is still circulating.



I wonder how many of the people going in for bee sting therapy avoid vaccines.

The gayest video on youtube

This gentleman addresses the nutjobs at the Westboro Baptist Church with "Why God Hates Fags or 'Bitch I get more dick then you'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm9nw5GdlzQ

Next, a video that has been described to me as "The gayest video on youtube." I'm not sure I agree that it's THE gayest, but I'd like to submit it for your consideration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q842E-a-dEw

His other videos are also hilarious.

Children in LDS Mormon community chant "Assassinate Obama"

In all fairness to the racist, hate fueled psychopaths chanting below, Bush didn't get much of this because his critics were largely more terrified of the specter of "President Cheney" than they were of Bush.

Florida tries to ban sex with animals. Again.

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Tax Code Allows Rappers To Write Off Bling

You've GOT to be kidding me.


http://www.prefixmag.com/news/tax-code-allows-rappers-to-write-off-bling/39674/

April 16, 2010 11:31 a.m. by Andrew Winistorfer

I always wondered how even the lowest tier rappers could afford chains that are worth more than my car. Apparently, thanks to their CPAs, they can write off bling purchases because, according to this article over at Plentii, it's part of maintaining their "brand." The article is pretty interesting in its depth of how basically rappers can write off anything they buy with a little creativity. Here's a little excerpt:

Rappers can deduct the cost of touring. They can deduct touring costumes, extravagant music videos, and insane home studio equipment. They can amortize the home studio itself. Moreover, Catalano says they should deduct their expenses or they have to give that money to the tax man. 

It's a pretty simple scenario: say, you're an underground rapper who suddenly hits big. You get a $50,000 royalty check one week and now you're looking at perhaps $20,000 in tax liability to Uncle Sam. 

“I never recommend a client spend money just to get rid of taxes. You want to reduce taxes with expenditures that''ll expand your business,” says Catalano. “Buy the future, if you can. Ask yourself, 'Is there something I can do for the next record or promotion, the next video, to help me make more money next year or the ensuing years?'”

I suppose it makes sense to an extent. If the bling is part of a costume to maintain an image than there's a rationale for claiming it's just as valid a business deduction as a new head for the the Boston Ballet's Rat King costume. The problem is, no one is wearing the Rat King's head to a club Saturday night. It really IS a costume and not part of daily attire. If worn outside of performances bling becomes more of a home office style expense, where I can see the IRS deciding only a percentage of the bling's purchase could be deducted.

Nuke the Spill!

http://trueslant.com/juliaioffe/2010/05/04/nuke-that-slick/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ojCbqfRRr8

I'd love to see the political battle that would ensue if Obama started advocating the use of nuclear weapons to stop the Gulf oil leak. I'd also love to see Greenpeace's reaction if it turned out that a deep sea nuke was the best bet for stopping the leak. Cognitive dissidence at that level may very well be lethal.

That said, I doubt BP would be able to tap that spot anytime soon if it was sealed with a nuke.

An observation about God

"The difference between an Atheist and a Christian is actually quite small. Both of them disbelieve in thousands of Gods. The real difference is that Atheists reject one more god than Christians.

What many Christians fail to understand is that an atheist's reasons for not believing in the Christian God are not that different from a Christian's reasons for not worshiping Thor, Apollo or Shiva."