humor
sa smith | November 22, 2010A lot of in the the blagodome are having a great time perusing the 'Encyclopedia of American Loons'. Its been up since May, but I guess we all just simultaneously found it or something :)
Its super fun to read-- ALL my favorite loons are there! Even some that I think are kinda obscure, like Blondie (aka Rebecca Culshaw)! Still no Lenny, but the blog is young.
I was also kinda bummed to read about Billy Corgan. I loved 'Smashing Pumpkins' when I was little :(
Aaaaaaanyway... you all know me :-D I couldnt help but notice that only 12 out of 101 American Loons are women. 11 + 2 halves (…
oracknows | November 20, 2010Silly Crispian, any homeopath will tell you that this isn't a valid test of homeopathy because you didn't adequately succuss at each step. (Of course, then there's the issue of succussing it against a Bible, which Hahnemann himself favored.) I also would have recommended using a different pipette for each dilution to make sure there was minimal to no carry-over. Of course, this latter comment has nothing to do with the validity of homeopathy (which has none) but the possibility of falsely elevating the level of residual piss at each dilution.
One wonders what else homeopathic piss could…
pharyngula | November 17, 2010But I have resisted! Somebody has been to Minnesota, though, where many do not.
Except…a Vikings fan rooting for Favre? He's going to hell whether he gets the mower or not.
oracknows | November 16, 2010I hadn't planned on beating on that wretched hive of anti-vaccine scum and quackery, Age of Autism, again today so soon after having done so not just once but twice yesterday. I really hadn't. After all, AoA is the crank gift that keeps on giving (and has kept on giving for three years now), and there is such a thing as going to the well too many times; i.e., too much of a "good" thing. I say this even though I had been planning on posting a blog post "rerun" today because last night I went out to dinner with a job candidate for our institution and didn't get back until late. By the time I…
oracknows | November 15, 2010Earlier today, I had a bit of fun deconstructing Dan Olmsted's whiny complaint about how "progressives don't 'get' autism," his definition of "getting" autism being, of course, buying into the scientifically discredited notion that vaccines cause autism and the quackery known as "autism biomed" that anti-vaccine loons like Olmsted advocate to "recover" autistic children. Of course, I wrote my little bit of not-so-Respectful Insolence last night; so I didn't get to see a rather amusing additional bit of information showing Olmsted to be clueless that happened to pop up today. First, let's look…
pharyngula | November 11, 2010A team of neuroscientists has made the coolest nerd porn film ever. They gave 16 women vibrators and asked them to bring themselves to orgasm while they made a movie…of their brains, using an MRI scanner. It's going to premiere at the Society for Neuroscience meetings.
While it sounds like they have some interesting results — there is a consistent, wide-spread pattern of brain activity during orgasm, and specific areas are known to fire up — the article is not going to do a lot for Professor Barry Komisaruk's reputation. The interviewer asked a few too many trivial questions.
"In women,…
oracknows | November 2, 2010It's depressing to think that after today people like this may well be running the House:
This year, willful ignorance is a campaign platform.
sastyk | November 2, 2010The Peak Oil Hausfrau revealed that the news about the climate isn't all bad: it is good for the minions of hell:
However, legal experts say that Hell's colonization of land owned by various Satanic holding companies is all perfectly legal. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an avid property-rights advocate, observed, "Some people say that Demons belong in Hell. I tend to agree, but Satan has purchased this real estate through legitimate and proper channels. What would happen if we tried to just nullify all the contracts that we didn't like? Chaos, that's what!"
Several sources in…
pharyngula | November 1, 2010This is probably the nerdiest thing I've been sent in oh, two or three days.
sastyk | October 31, 2010A blog is a window into the intellectual world of its owner, I'm reliably told by people who think about this stuff. That's what's so compelling about the good ones - again, so I'm told.
So here's what's been going through my intellectual world lately....
....BOING.
....BOING.
You know that screen saver that bounces the ball across your computer screen. That's about it, here. I'm having a slow period - busy with other things, easily distractable and probably experiencing some measure of late fall shut down as I go into hibernation mode.
Fortunately, The Onion, as always provides useful…
pharyngula | October 29, 2010Hey, I've seen this phenomenon a few times.
Read the whole thing. It's got a happy (?) ending! With a kitten!
oracknows | October 29, 2010I know I kvetch from time to time about the currently dismal funding situation for biomedical research and worry about whether I'll be able to keep my lab funded. However, every so often I'm reminded that cancer researchers by and large have it pretty good, at least compared to some academic disciplines:
pharyngula | October 27, 2010I guess I'm not the only person in the world to get ranty emails from devout Christians. I was sent a copy of the message below which was originally sent to a store (name hidden to protect the guilty) which was selling a copy of the hideous leg lamp from the movie, A Christmas Story.
To 'Your Retail Store':
Today I went into your store, and I was appalled and disgusted that you blasphemed Almighty God Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Nativity Christmas by selling from your store shelves a filthy pornographic lamp that said "Christmas" Story on it. REMOVE THAT PIECE OF FILTHY, PORNOGRAPHIC…
oracknows | October 20, 2010Yesterday was a travel day, which means I was too exhausted to grind out a piece of peerless logorrheic prose full of Insolence, Respectful, not-so-Respectful, or both. Fortunately, readers sent me something rather amusing that is also timely given some of the conversations we had at the Lorne Trottier Symposium Monday and Tuesday, where questions about why various forms of woo are not accepted by mainstream medicine, chemistry, science, etc. One answer that came up is that, if these things worked, there'd be a lot of really interesting things to study, applications of these things to real…
sastyk | October 19, 2010I'm your mamma, I'm your daddy
I'm that farma in the alley
I'm your doctor, when in need
Want sweet taters? Have some nettle weed!
You know me, i'm your friend
Gotcher parsnips, thick and thin
I'm your pusherwoman,
I'm your pusherwoman.
haha
Ain't i clean, veggie queen
Super cool, super green
Feelin' good, for not the man
Onion chick, here i stand
Carrot stash, heavy bread
Baddest bitch in your garden bed!
I'm your pusherwoman
I'm your pusherwoman
I'm your pusherwoman
Solid life, on the farm
Gal of odd circumstance
A victim of agrarian dreams
Feed you my broccoli
And i'll let you trip for a…
oracknows | October 17, 2010Damn. Every so often another blogger will think of something that I really, really wished I'd thought of before. Times like this, and this handy-dandy alternative medicine flow chart.
I do think he missed one thing, though. Just because someone doesn't like having stuff shoved up their posterior doesn't mean they won't be into "detox." Colonic irrigation is part of many "detox" regimens. Of course, much woo overlaps; so you can't make any hard and fast rules. Consider this chart a guide instead.
oracknows | October 15, 2010Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you've come to expect. This is one of those times. I happen to be sitting here in Palm Beach, Florida, but I'm not chilling at the beach or pool. Rather, I'm attending "leadership training." Yes, be very, very afraid! In any case, I never saw the point of having these sorts of training seminars at beautiful oceanfront locations if they're going to pack the entire day with, you know, actual training! Worse (for purposes of blogging), I really have to fine tune my…
sastyk | October 13, 2010Great article from "The Annals of Improbable Research" on "Artificae Plantae: The Taxonomy, Ecology and Ethnobotany of Simulacra." It is about time someone did this research:
A previously unacknowledged plant family of significant economic importance plants has been flourishing around us for many years. The fact that this immense and diverse family has been heretofore ignored by most botanists is astonishing--its members are found worldwide in nearly every society. This family is more than a botanical curiosity. It is a scientific conundrum, as the taxa:
1.lack genetic material,
2.appear…