humor
oracknows | July 11, 2013Well, I'm here at TAM. I had a great time last night meeting up with old friends, although, thanks to the time difference between Eastern time and Las Vegas, combined with my having to give a talk today, I was forced to retire at an early 11 AM (which, of course, felt to me like 2 AM).
As you might imagine, blogging will be light, because I still have to put the finishing touches on my talk for Saturday and take in all the skeptic-y goodness at TAM, but I can't resist this little tidbit. It's a video I came across the other day that brings a whole new meaning to the term "chiroquacktic."…
oracknows | May 27, 2013I am taking the Memorial Day holiday off. I will return tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a general principle that needs to be remembered in cancer research:
I would also add to that list: So does bleach. So does acid. So does alkali. So does pouring the media out of the dish and letting the cells dry out. So does adding water to dilute the media. So do a variety of lethal poisons. So does heat. So does cold. The list goes on. Add to the list as you see fit!
The point, of course, is that it's very easy to kill cells in a cancer dish. What is difficult is selectively killing cancer cells in…
sastyk | March 29, 2013Mark Steel at the Independent has a great column on the root cause of our economic instability - poor folks and all the trouble they cause by not quite appearing to do the evil deeds they do!
It’s a tricky argument to pull off, that the poor caused the debt so they should pay it back. Maybe that’s why most weeks there are stories in certain newspapers about a woman with 45 kids on benefits, who then bought a giraffe and now that’s on benefits but she said it was cramped so the council has put it up in the Shard, and two of the kids have got Compulsive Potting Disorder so they’ve been given a…
sastyk | March 7, 2013I get to play ringmaster to the Greatest Show on Earth - my own personal family farm circus with at least three rings of fun going on at any given time, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
The circus varies a lot in size (I recently overheard myself saying that it didn't matter how many people came to a celebration at my place, that I can perfectly well cook for 40 as well as 20, which is actually correct), with a baseline population of 8 (Me, Eric, Eli 13, Simon 11, Isaiah 9, Asher 7, Baby Z. 8mos and Phil-the-housemate) plus N additional members provided by foster care. I've come to…
sastyk | February 7, 2013Are we facing Snowpocalypse this weekend? Rest assured, your blogiste is ready. Ok, sorta ready, since I'm working on my book I have to rely on husband, Phil-the-housemate and children to move a buttload of wood inside, and we do have to pick up more baby formula, but otherwise, we're ready to hunker down here and toast marshmallows while the world undergoes...what exactly?
Current forecasts place the total amount somewhere between 2.6 and 29.3 inches.
Such is the maddening, exhilarating unpredictability of weather patterns on this rock-and-lava spinning blueberry we call home.
...The third…
sastyk | January 18, 2013This is being sung in my household by a parade of boys carrying Baby Z. around and singing to him. I offer it to you, well, because I find it awfully amusing. Perhaps you can guess what's on the homeschool agenda here at the farm lately. It is mostly the work of the boys, with occasional suggestions from Mom and Dad.
(To the tune of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow")
You have bilateral symmetry/You have bilateral symmetry/You have bilateral symmetry/Two arms, two eyes, one spine.
You don't have radial symmetry/You don't have radial symmetry/You don't have radial symmetry/You are not a…
sastyk | December 21, 2012It was at the moment that my sons were assigning our official titles that I realized that I live in G.R.O.S.S. Their father was "The Supreme Dictator of the Universe." Isaiah at 9 deemed himself "El Tigre Numero Uno." (The fact that he is not actually a tiger has nothing to do with it, I'm told.) Simon wanted to be "Imperial Gladiator and Prime Minister Tward." Asher dithered over several possible choices, each more grandiose than the other. And your blogiste? Well, as Isaiah put it "Someone has to be the Bossy Evil Space Crab, and you are the bossiest Mommy."
Those of you who fondly…
sastyk | November 20, 2012There are, of course, a lot of critical issues going on right now, and you can count on your blogiste to keep you up on them. Besides the fallout from Sandy, crisis of arctic sea ice and all the agricultural issues that need to be brought to the light, it can be hard to keep up. But I think we all can agree what really is critical at this moment is this: What are we all going to eat when the zombies come? How will we go on now that that perfect survival food, the Twinkie, is no longer available? Particularly since Israel and Gaza seem bent on bringing the zombies in extra-soon, before…
sastyk | October 25, 2012AP Wire - As it heads rapidly towards energy independence, the US has been dubbed "The New Middle East" by Energy Department officials, hoping desperately that it will be true. Slightly rising oil production, a lot of shuffling paper around to make "liquids" look like oil, and a new policy of fostering internal discord and violence will, hopefully, make overblown claims about our energy situation slightly more plausible.
After years of merely rhetorically presenting itself as the "Saudi Arabia of Coal and/or Natural Gas," the US Department of Energy announced a new, stepped up resemblance…
sastyk | October 21, 2012At least they do in The Onion.
“Citizens are advised to bid farewell to parents, children, and any other friends or family they haven’t seen in a while,” Frieden told reporters, adding that if you live anywhere in the Northeast, you should definitely call within the next 48 hours, if not by tonight. “If you have any unresolved emotional issues with any family member whatsoever, now is the time to work those out—I mean right now, because there will not be another chance."
It is always more fun if you have no idea what your doom will look like. I'm guessing just like this, though. Bunnies and…
oracknows | October 4, 2012Here we go again.
A week ago, I tried to exercise my blogging powers (such as they are) for some good by rallying my readers to appear at rallies organized by the antivaccine movement against California Bill AB 2109. Fortunately, ultimately Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill, although he did try to insert weasel words in his signing statement to create a religious exemption from the requirement for informed consent from a health care professional before being allowed a philosophical exemption. All in all, it was a transparent and cowardly attempt to placate opponents and privilege religion…
sastyk | September 21, 2012In 2011 I wrote an essay about how the convention of escape undermines our thinking about the environmental crises we are facing. A kind reader of mine emailed to tell me about how she uses that essay "Outrunning the Boom" in her classroom, and her wonderful students responded with this video. Apparently, outrunning the boom is way cooler than I knew. No wonder I'm not winning the rhetoric war ;-)! H/T to Anna - Thanks!
oracknows | September 6, 2012I must admit, there are times when I see something that someone else has written and, in a fit of intense envy, wish very much that I had written it. This is just such a time, and Tony Ballantyne has written just such a piece. Even better, his piece, entitled If only..., was published in Nature! That's right, the editors of Nature itself agree (or at least thought it interesting enough to publish): No science for you! What are you waiting for? Read it!
Of course, it's all a fantasy. In particular, I like the part asking why so many people are proud to be "bad at math" who would be utterly…
sastyk | September 6, 2012Love this weather report - check it out! Of course it is time to fire up the barbecue!
Sharon
oracknows | August 21, 2012...that's right. It'll soon be time to get your flu shot. Listen to ZDoggMD:
I think I'll ask for the thimerosol-containing version of the vaccine again this year.
oracknows | July 30, 2012C. difficile is an enormous clinical problem to which, unfortunately, we physicians can contribute, as ZDoggMD tells us in Dawn of the C. Diff:
You go to the doctor to talk ‘em in
To givin’ antibiotics for your coughin’ thing
They explain that the pain in your throat’s a virus
“Antibiotics are not desirous!”
But you ain’t hearing this, you get all in they face
“Why, this is malpractice, a total disgrace!
I’m not leaving this place without a script, my man!”
Frustrated and berated, doc throws up his hands
The result? Well, let this video tell the tale:
pharyngula | June 23, 2012That creationist rascal Kenwal Hamza is up to his tricks again: he's convinced the state of Kentucky to invest millions of dollars in his planned theme park, Koran Kountry.
The controversial park is the creation of Answers in Koran, LLC, who seek to bring visitors to the “family-friendly attraction that celebrates the truth of the Koran, and the power of the global jihadist movement to liberate Muslims from the oppression of the infidels and Jews. We also have roller coasters.”
The $300 million park, built on top of a reclaimed surface mining site in Muhlenberg County, was constructed with…
oracknows | June 14, 2012One of my favorite YouTube channels is Epic Rap Battes of History. Some of my favorite battles include Darth Vader vs. Adolf Hitler (and, of course, the rematch), Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers (hilarious!), Napoleon vs. Napoleon, Gandalf vs. Dumbledore, and, of course, my favorite of all time, Albert Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking. However, just this morning I got a notification that the boys had finally posted a rap battle we've all been waiting for, one that I'm surprised they didn't do a long time ago. That's right: Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates.
Apple vs. PC vs. Linux. Discuss. Yeah, I know. It's a…
oracknows | June 13, 2012Although I'm interested in skepticism in general, I have a tendency to gravitate towards one particular form of pseudoscience (alternative medicine) and, in particular, a certain kind of that particular form of pseudoscience, namely antivaccine quackery. However, as much as I keep returning to the antivaccine movement, I keep noticing just how much it shares with other forms of science denialism and pseudoscientific thinking. I was reminded of this when one of my readers e-mailed me a link to a Facebook group, Pro-Vax Quacks. I have no idea who's behind the group, but what I do know is that…
oracknows | June 12, 2012I know, I know, I've been writing about MMS a lot. Don't worry. Barring some unforeseen development, this will probably be the last one for a while. However, I just had to comment again because this is just too funny (not to mention that I didn't have a lot of time last night because, yes, I had to work on a grant application). Remember how I mentioned the pro-MMS petition in which Jim Humble, the man who had the revelation that you can bleach away whatever disease you're suffering from, demanded that Emily Willingham (who did a Change.org petition demanding that Kerri Rivera stop treating…