A Dead Filibuster? A Real Democracy? Get Outta Here...

      Im not a lawyer, but if it is legally sound to repeal the filibuster without 67 votes, then it should be done, even if doing so is politically unpopular.  This mind-blowing article in American Prospect suggests precisely this can be done, if the action is taken directly after the new Senate is sworn in.  Consider the impact this would have - we could return to having a democracy which functions on majority rule, and not minority dictate; a democracy like the one so meticulously created by our founders.  That would give me goosebumps.  READ THE ARTICLE.

Consciousness Raising Over Those Without Conscience

      I first imagined that the recent Andrew Wakefield ruling by the GMC would have little effect on the anti-vaccine folks.  The anti-vax movement is nearly immune to evidence - they have been inoculated by each other into a state of certainty, some misguided frenzy of perceived righteousness.  In reality, they're just hurting people and causing death.  But there seems to be some good coming out of the guilty verdict - perhaps I was too pessimistic.
      I've been pleased to see the many stories that have surfaced about the ruling.  Visibility is a good thing for us in the reality-based community when it comes to persuading those who sit on the fence about whether or not to protect their child.  Even if it is more than pulling-your-hair-out annoying to see the media cover the story so improperly.  As long as we keep spreading the facts, and presenting the case for rational and critical thinking, we will accomplish good. 

      There is great aggregate diary of the Wakefield coverage over the recent days at the Daily Kos.  Also, this morning I received an email from a startup website called Newsy with the hopes that I would post the attached video regarding Wakefield's actions.  It seems their idea is to file reports based on the aggregate coverage, with multiple news sources, not unlike the Daily Kos post above.  It's like a news digest ... take a look.

10.23 Overdose - Good Start, More on the Way

You can watch video of the 10.23 protesters swallowing a bottle full of homeopathic arsenic pills (sugar) here.  The protest, from the video, seems a wee bit... wee.  A good start - let's keep 'em coming guys, each time bigger and more dramatic than the last!
Update:  Well done!  It looks like the protest did indeed attract a good amount of media attention.  Most of the major news outlets in the U.K. seem to have covered it.  Here is a link to some of them at the Google News related stories page.

10.23 Protest Tomorrow - Overdose On Homeopathic Arsenic - New Scientist

The New Scientist has come out with an article explaining the 10.23 protest on January 30th in London.  A spokesperson for the 10.23 group against homeopathic nonsense writes:

AT 10.23 am on 30 January, more than 300 activists in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US will take part in a mass homeopathic "overdose". Sceptics will publicly swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic pills to demonstrate to the public that homeopathic remedies, the product of a scientifically unfounded 18th-century ritual, are simply sugar pills...  Many of the sceptics will swallow 84 pills of arsenicum album, a homeopathic remedy based on arsenic which is used to treat a range of symptoms, including food poisoning and insomnia.

Wishing you the best!  I would stand by your side and overdose, if I could...

Daily Show With John Stewart - State Of The Media

The servility and ...  oh, screw it...  just watch it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Speech Therapy - Post-Racial
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Cosmic Perspective

This interactive tour through the scales of our beautiful universe, from the planck scale to the "edge" of the universe, will strain your brain to disbelief.  I have not much more to say about this except to spend a good 15 minutes taking it all in.  'Fotoshop,' is the handle of the individual artist who created this lesson in the sublime, and he/she has won my great appreciation.  What a fantastically executed exploration through a reality more incredible than any possible fantasy...  via Tocsin via Bad Astronomy, cheers!

Founder of the Anti-Vaccine Movement Found Guilty of Misconduct

      Dr. Andrew Wakefield may not be a doctor for long.  The founder of the anti-vaccine scare which caused thousands upon thousands of children to go needlessly unprotected against easily preventable diseases, with devastating results, has been found guilty by the U.K.'s General Medical Council.  In the conclusion of the meticulous 2 1/2 year hearing, the GMC found Wakefield

"guilty of a series of misconduct charges that include putting children through painful and unnecessary tests without ethical approval or appropriate qualifications, a General Medical Council fitness-to-practice panel found.  The GMC said Dr Wakefield also acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in carrying out his research, which he said suggested a link between measles vaccinations and autism. It sparked the biggest vaccine scare in a generation and was blamed for the resurgence of measles in Britain." (Herald Scotland)

  Among the charges: Wakefield conducted his experiments on children attending his sons birthday party, for a fee of five pounds, without approval from any ethics board, for the benefit of his research and not that of the children's.
       I will take a wild guess and say that this will not affect the resolve of the vaccinidiot movement, they are impervious to the trespasses of evidence.  Dr. Wakefield has made a lucrative career out of his opposition to vaccines.  With his medical and scientific credentials having been completely torn to shreds, there remains no other road for him to plow... though one would hope he would soon have the decency to admit he was wrong. (Fat-fat-fatty-chance)
      When your theory is overturned by evidence, no matter how upsetting that may be, as a scientist you must abandon your theory and move on.  That is how it works.  When Wakefield refused to do this, he ceased to be a scientist and became an ideologue...  A dangerous one... A woo criminal.

Google News' List of Related Articles.

Re: In Which I Am Neologistic

Witnessing Phil Plait being smacked down by his commenters upon his innocent (even if ill researched) claim that he coined the new word "schadenfruedelicious" (I was rooting for you Phil, alas, the evidence is against you), has motivated me enough to post my new, revolutionary, Nobel Prize worthy coinage from my post a few days ago.  According to Google, as far as I can tell, it is a new phrase:

Woo Crimes: Noun;

 –noun

Usually, woo crimes. crimes committed against an individual or group of individuals, by abusing credulity, in order to persuade the individual/s to accept something based on unsupported claims; allegations of the suspension of accepted natural law without evidence;                             sometimes- recommended or performed medical action justified upon convictions unsupported by, or directly contradicted by, evidence, logic, or physics; also-  injurious quackery.

Related Forms:  Woo-Criminal, noun.

Like Phil, I also intend the free use of this word/phrase. Make use of it. Meme it!

Comic Relief - Brought to You by Ted Haggard

For those of you who haven't heard:  Yesterday, the wife of Ted Haggard, the ex mega-church anti-gay preaching caught doing meth while having gay sex with a male prostitute reverend, went on NBC to announce that Ted Haggard is now completely heterosexual.  Glory Hole-elluyah!  Maybe now he'll get his job back and go back to the ole' fire and brimstone division and derision.

So here's an appropriate song to commemorate the occasion!  The first time I saw this video, the tune got stuck in my head... trust me, you must protect yourself against this... these are not the lyrics you want to be caught singing in public!

And as for Roy Zimmerman's other work, this is my favorite one by far:

Woo, Boo-Hoo

Stop being so negative.  Your bad energy is affecting the treatment... I can't treat the patients properly when your aura is wafting in here all "negative."


The Times Higher Education ran an article today by Zoe Corbyn, regarding the spat between two professors over what one them sees as a waste of valuable resources:  The Woo People of Europe met last week to begin their work disappearing $2.4 million worth of funds meant to "advance the science behind complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)."  Great,  you say!  Finally, some double blind randomized clinical trials - some new red meat to hit them over the head with... but sadly, unsurprisingly, no.

"Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter... said he feared it would be a "waste of money"... "It lacks critical input and is dominated by CAM-believers," he said, adding that the funding would be better spent on "a few rigorous studies". [sic]

As you might have guessed, the response was to whine about the professor himself instead of offering a rebuttal, or justification as to why the criticism was objectionable.  George Lewith, a participant of the CAM group, attacked:

He said Professor Ernst "always errs on the side of being very negative - and that is the problem he has with almost every other researcher in the field ... He is out on a limb because he is so consistently negative ... his view of the data is almost entirely inconsistent with everyone else in the field..."   In response, Professor Ernst said that "CAM enthusiasts frequently confuse critical thinking with negativity".

Bravo, and isn't that the case.  Question the scientific basis for their claims and they accuse you of being "negative."  There is a vast difference between thinking critically and being a naysayer, and I wish more people would consider this distinction.  One action is required for the pursuit of knowledge, and the other is, well, douchey.   Read the full article here.

The Apple iPad --

My opinion?  -  Forget it... if your purpose is reading books.  A backlit screen, like a laptop screen, will seriously bother your eyes while reading text.  For the Kindle owner who doesn't really read that often, it might be a good choice.  Would I buy one?  YES... but NOT for reading.

The great thing about the Kindle and other sophisticated E-Readers is that they are SINGLE PURPOSE - their E-ink screen is made to look exactly like paper - giving you an authentic and comfortable reading experience.  Yes, this might mean you need to attach a reading light if you'd like to read in bed, but that's the price you pay for wanting to read from a book, not from a laptop screen.  If you read much, that's a no-brainer.  For an opposing view, click the photo:

Howard Zinn Dies At Age 87

Howard Zinn, author of "The People's History of the United States," has died at age 87 in California.  Though I have personal differences with him, he was a thought provoking man, and a consummate activist  A shining example of the value of free speech, he prompted American self-reflection.

First Article of Notice

Please Sign This Parliamentary Petition to Reform U.K.'s Libel Laws

"Free speech is not for sale."

This is a very important matter that I've been involved in for some time.  Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy fame, puts it briefly:

"If you’re a regular reader, you know that the libel laws in the UK are truly awful. Instead of the burden of proof being on the accuser, as it should be, in the UK the burden is on the accused. So if I decide to sue you for something you wrote about me, it’s up to you to prove there was no malicious intent on your part. And it can cost you literally millions of dollars to defend yourself.

That, to be blunt, sucks. And it’s bad for freedom of expression, because it means that criticism of a claim can be substantially suppressed; who would want to speak out against, say, quacks, if they can sue you and cost you time and money?...   These laws affect everyone on the planet (if you write something on the Internet, it’s entirely possible to be sued in the UK for it; this is called libel tourism and is a serious issue), so it doesn’t matter if you’re a UK citizen or not."

Please sign the petition, to be taken to MP Jack Straw tomorrow.  (Unless you are content to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life.)  Here is the comment I added to the petition: "Stop libel tourism.  The U.K.'s libel laws shelter and protect those who perpetrate scams upon the public.  Truth is the ultimate defense.  Freedom of speech should be the first principle of any democratic government."

Let's, Please, Not Let Another One Get Away

(McCormick sold $85,000,000 worth of useless "dowsing-rod" bomb detectors Iraqis)

Let's, please, not let another fraud get away.  As far as I can tell, Jim McCormick has been arrested and let out on bail, but he has not yet been charged.  The relevant constituents in the UK must demand this man be prosecuted with the full force of the law, because, as James Randi of the JREF points out, the $85,000,000 made by his company from the sale of these farcical, fraudulent frak-wands will surely pay for this deceitful troll's top-of-the-line legal defense.

What's more, the Iraqi general who is responsible for the use and continued defense of these devices appears to have knowledge of their inefficacy.  Yet, he still insists his own military and police officers use them, putting their lives in danger and wasting their resources and those of the Iraqi people.  Some of the officers appear to know very clearly that the $40,000 plastic pointer is a fraud, as quoted from this article by Nathan Hodge in Wired Magazine:

"Which brings us to the Iraqi army lieutenant, standing in traffic. He said he knew the device had been banned, but told the reporter the military was still continuing to use it.   “It is [terrible],” the officer told AFP. "But still we are lying about it.”"

There can be little doubt that there exist enormous financial motives for the general, the middlemen, and those responsible for the initial use of the devices to defend their implementation (calling these wands 'devices' seems far too kind, as it implies they actually perform some action. Well... they do drain the Iraqi treasury, so we'll stick with 'devices' for now).

Below you will find James Randi's video response... I've not seen him this mad!  Randi calling the general a FATASS?  Bravo.

Superstitions That Kill - Frauds Who Profit

    This is the appalling measure of what preying on a population's credulity can bring.  What unjust suffering has this scam wrought on a country torturously damaged from violence and hatred  -----  I find hatred within myself, of the healthy kind, towards people such as Jim McCormick, who has apparently caused many deaths selling his magical bomb-detecting dowsing rod as a real technology to the Iraqi government, specifically from the false security it gave at checkpoints.  These dowsing rods consist of an empty plastic box, with a Radio-Shack-style antenna sticking out of it, mounted on a swivel, and no batteries (it is purported to work from your "body energy").  He sold these cheap plastic farces for use at hundreds of Iraqi security checkpoints, for the reasonable fee of approximately $40,000.00 each (estimated sum including "training" and "middlemen").  
    
    Jim McCormick, yet another thieving, injurious, reality-denying, "woo-woo" pushing charlatan... of the particularly deadly type.
    
    How grave is the fraud he committed?  How much did his company make off of the Iraqi people?  $85,000,000.  How did he prey so shamelessly on our brothers and sisters in Iraq, who tread dangerously close to death and injury?  The same way many charlatans do.  He targeted those who were vulnerable, desperate, and likely lacking the means to defend themselves against this type of technological fraud:

Jesus and Mo

Recent comics from Jesus and Mo:

We've All Been Exposed - Quick, Run For Cover!

Okay.  Now, initially I didn't bother mentioning this amusement that's been buzzing around the skeptic community's discussions recently... But if you haven't heard of this by now, you have to hear of this by now!  It's just gotten too good to pass up.  Besides,  schadenfruede toward quackery's hackery is a vastly underrated experience.

I shall make this appropriately summary:  Alternative medicine prophet Mike Adams was in the lead, thanks to his flock of wish thinking supporters, to win the Shorty Award in the category of "health."  Once the reality-based community saw this, they showed their support for one DrRachie, a real doctor, who has spent much of her time fighting the often dangerous and verminous claims of the alternative-consumables-without-medicinal-effectiveness community.  DrRachie is now in the lead, well, because she's gotten more votes, naturally!  And, of course, there is that thing about her being real doctor.  Ooops, I almost forgot to mention - Quackity-Quack was then disqualified for suspected vote-fraud... whether from his own sock-puppetry, or from the invalid votes of his supporters.

Well, as one might imagine, this made for very, very unhappy quacking noises from the reality-denialist candidate, Mike Adams:  claims of conspiracy, vote rigging, and hilariously dishonest tirades against scientists or "skeptics" in general - in which he exposes us all for wanting everyone to die from chemicals while we cannibalize non-organic babies with autism in the dining halls of the pharmaceutical companies).  Sheesh!

Now, a lowlier quack, who was trailing quack #1 prior to his disqualification, before DrRachie took her rightful place, has issued an attack on DrRachie herself, hoping to overtake her and win.  Except it's not just any attack, no.  Not a refutation of her science, nor of her unwillingness to believe in the magic of quackic-healing...  No - he attacks her for being --- fat.  This is your "alternative medicine hero," as Phil Plait pointed out, this is he who is morally outraged at the scientists medicinal findings - so deeply that he has suffered great pains to offer us all salvation from conspiratorial medicine through his profitables...  and OH!  I almost forgot... cast your rational vote for DrRachie!

I encourage you to read the relevant posts below -- because this is very entertaining!

- Orac's Post - 

- Phil Plait's Post (I second the approval of ad hominem)- 

- PZ's Post - 

The Tough Questions

The Beyond Belief conference, which can be found in full on www.thesciencenetwork.org, is a fantastic repository of interesting talks.  Sean Carroll's discussion, which I recently watched, is short and consciousness-raising.  I'm partial to Lawrence Krauss' talk covering these matters, however.

Abstruse Goose: String Theeery and The Artificial Fallacy

Sendin y'all over to Abstruse Goose...

Please Swallow 200 Sleeping Pills

      A few days earlier, I recommended all of my dear Facebook friends swallow 200 doses of sleeping pills...
      Homeopathic sleeping pills, that was, as a demonstration in protest of the scam that is the homeopathic industry.  The only irritating thing about such a protest is that one would first be made to purchase the packaged water, at an astronomically inflated price (I can get water at the much better price of $0.001294583883752 per dose - yes, I actually took the time to calculate it).

However, the comedic and negative exposure that we might bring to these massive con-artist corporations would outweigh any profits from our purchases, in my opinion... and it would be FUN!

Well, it appears exactly this will happen in London tomorrow!

"The protest will take place on high streets across the country at 10.23 on January 30.  The group behind the stunt, known as 10.23, has lobbied the NHS to reduce its £4billion annual budget on homeopathic medicines and is now targeting Boots,"

says an article in the Daily Mail.  FOUR BILLION MILLION POUNDS OF THE PEOPLE'S TAXES TO BUY TINY DOSES OF WATER... did you get that part?

      Boots, which is to England what Rite-Aid is to America (though more strictly a pharmacy), has been criticized widely for profiting on the sale of homeopathic "remedies."  People, such as myself, believe that selling these "remedies" in respected pharmaceutical establishments only confuses consumers.  Selling sugar, lactose, or water in medical/clinical looking packages, whilst likely diverting dollars and efforts away from finding the appropriate medical treatment, is not a practice that we should allow to remain without fierce criticism.  Especially when the corporation has admitted that the consumption of these remedies has no justification in medical science:

"Boots' professional standards director Paul Bennett told a committee of MPs that there was no medical evidence that homeopathic pills and potions work.  'There is certainly a consumer demand for these products,' he said.  'I have no evidence to suggest they are efficacious... It is about consumer choice for us and a large number of our customers believe they are efficacious.'

Mr Bennett made his comments to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which is investigating the scientific evidence behind homeopathy."

If you hail from London, consider donating a few hours for a good cause.  Read the full article in the Daily Mail.  Also, here's another rather amusing exposure of boots by Matt Parker.

Correction - I found the NHS figure in this article a little extreme, so I checked, and it seems the article got it wrong, it's 4 million pounds. Still appalling!  The total industry in the UK is estimated at 35-40 million pounds!

Homeopathic Emergency

Props to Greg Laden...

SCOTUS SCREWED'US

Today is a bad, bad day for America.  Get ready for vastly more corporate engineering of the outcomes in Washington.  This was supposed to be the peoples government.

Possibly the most significant and destructive ruling made by the Supreme Court in our time.

Krugman Slams Obama - Anger Is Building

So much for strength and conviction in leadership, says Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman of President Obama.  In his most recent post, Krugman says he is about ready to give up on the president, that "He Wasn't The One We've Been Waiting For."

Though I'm willing to allow him scantly more time before giving up, I must say that Krugman's criticisms are super similar to my own.  Obama has not been strong enough to be liberal enough to do what we need done to stand up to the elements that drove our country off a cliff, period.  I hope and "pray" that he will, but hope doesn't get you where you need to go.

Republicans managed to push their legislation through with much smaller majorities on the hill.  Why?  Because they had guts, they didn't care about the other party (no matter, because Democrats don't filibuster like republicans do), and they used reconciliation for major legislation.  They did all that to pass horrendous legislation.  I wonder why the Democrats aren't smart enough to do the same in order to pass good legislation.

So here we are.  The Democrats have watered down the health care bill so much that is has now become homeopathic... and even that may not pass.  Bravo.

Thou Shalt Speaketh Bad English

      For those of you who haven't had the privilege of visiting the research blogging community's 'Epiphenom,' now would be a good time to do so.  There have been some great papers recently.
      I'm partial to the most recent post, which explains a statistically significant correlation between religiosity and an inability to speak english properly/'poor verbal skills.'  Yes, I admit there is a little schadenfruede swirling in my belly, but really, what this hints at is interesting.  Correlation is, of course, not causation, but perhaps with more study we will work to find targeted solutions in improving education nation-wide.

     "The effect is pretty big - belief that the Bible is the word of God has a negative effect on verbal skills similar to the positive effect of being university educated. The effect of simply being a member of a fundamentalist group was smaller - about half as big - but still significant...  So why should fundamentalism be linked to problems with language? One answer is simply that people who have poor verbal skills are attracted to religious fundamentalists - perhaps because it provides a peer group of similarly impaired individuals."  (Link: Study)

As well, A Brief History of 2009 is an overview of the scientific studies conducted on religiosity in 2009, and is a good read.  By all means, disagreement and criticism is half the fun.

The State Of Emergency.

You know what would make me angry?  If a lazy, self-important, cretinous candidate should thwart the yearlong efforts of a national majority in achieving health care reform (whats left of it anyway).  And, unlike the great majority of other upsetting political comedies, the current deranged Republican party will have had no direct responsibility for it.  No, the vainglorious and entitled type of Democrat that is Martha Coakley will have wrought it all.

This is Massachusetts.  If Coakley loses, as seems likely, it won't be thanks to the influence of Palinesque uneducated protesters tea-bagging their way across the country.  No, it will be because she refused to campaign, to shake hands, to be a candidate.  It will be because she was criminally cavalier, because she held 19 campaign rallies when her opponent held 66 (a former nude centerfold, I wonder if Palin will deride him in the very manner she did Levi Johnston).  And that makes me angry, because I, along with millions of others, worked endlessly so that the 2008 election would mean something, would bring real reform.

The Republicans have been orgasming over the lie that this election is a national repudiation of Obama, and some of the servile pundits have bought into this with little evidence.  This race was appallingly run, and thats the word with the bark on it.  There are other reasons to be angry and frustrated with Obama and the Democrats: watering down meaningful healthcare reform whilst tarrying, unwillingness to call out and attack outrageous Republican tactics, being soft on the duplicitous senator from Connecticut, and being nauseatingly friendly with the same financial institutions that exploded the country from within... But this impressive failure isn't one of those things, and the fault lies essentially with one alone.

If you would like an idea of who benefits from a Coakley (and perhaps a healthcare) loss, you only have to look as far as the stock market, where today health insurance company stocks soared at the prospect of never having to change their ways, at the prospect of being able to continue their pattern of behavior as they suck our blood dry.

(Addendum:  Let me make clear that even if Coakley wins, she is the type of politician we would do well to keep out of progressive politics in the future.  We work for our votes in this country, we earn them, we don't just "deserve" them.  While Coakley is, to me, repugnant, she isn't nearly as disastrous as her opponent... Go vote for her now.)

                                                                                                                                    
Well, shame on you Martha Coakley... 6:25pm pst, and Coakley concedes.  Ahead will be an interesting circus.

Symphony of Science: The Unbroken Thread...

To me, not nearly as moving as the previous three symphonies, but still

great to watch. I've got to say, "Our Cosmic Perspective" and 

"We Are All Connected" are an becoming an unhealthy obsession with 

me. Donate to support Symphony of Science by going to their  website.

Well... So Much For That - Ahem - "Trickle"...

Well, as you may have noticed, there came no "trickle" of posts as was promised.  It simply proved far too difficult to keep up with current events and post from the middle of the jungle with an unfortunately injured leg, myriad logistical problems, and, even more unfortunately, an exhausting yet unsuccessful attempt to save the life of an elderly hiker... It was an eventful week.

I return amid unbelievably awful news about Haiti, trying and inauspicious news regarding the lackluster campaign Martha Coakley has run in Boston, and the disturbing hostage situation that might bring when it comes to providing healthcare for those who need it, as well as stopping the abuses of the health insurance industry.  Oh... and some amusing news about, who else, Sarah Palin... the gift that keeps on giving.

But the first order of business, of course, is Haiti.  What a particularly terrible and dangerous place for a natural seismic disaster of this scale to occur.  It is for lack of shame that certain religious charlatans, such as Pat Robertson, have used the matter to proselytize and make disparaging comments about the Haitian people.  For shame.

I advocate first for aid in general, but particularly for giving to secular aid organizations where you can be confident your donations will be used purely for aid and not for aid under the name of a particular organized religion, or any other parallels.  The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has set up a fund you may give to that will distribute aid responsibly to secular organizations on the ground, such as The International Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders.  You may either donate directly to these organizations, or go to http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net/ to show your support.

This is the time to give, even if you're strapped for cash.  It will feel good.