A Google moment of zen, resolving a query on “autists”:
Archive for February, 2007
Worrying trend of the day: following Hillary Clinton’s drift to the right, former Republican Most Liked By Democrats John McCain is charting his own drift into stupidity. After reversing his previously liberal stance on abortion, McCain has now agreed to speak at the fruitcake Discovery Institute, a more-tank-than-think think tank dedicated to dollying up creationism and dumbing down science in the name of intelligent design. Clearly the good senator has to try and recoup some of the evangelical support recently lost by Republican corruption scandals and gayboy buttsex fun, but stooping as low as showing support for an anti-science group of loons like the DI goes much too far. Courting the Christian fundamentalist right is certainly politically expedient, but somehow McCain had the public persona of someone with a tad more moral backbone.
Michael Berry, scammer-busting denizen of 419 Eater fame, snags Nigerian fraudsters for fun. His latest victim, one Ony Obo, supposedly at death’s door, is made to jump through hoops in his lust for easy cash. Not only does he have to carve a wooden bust in Berry’s likeness, he has to organise a Nigerian re-enactment of the Dead Parrot Sketch.
Read part one of the correspondence here.
And read part two, with a parrotty grand finale, here.
Every now and then a journalist, scientist or blogger takes down a quack with such bone crunching enthusiasm that it fills me with a warm, fuzzy glow. Journalist and doctor Ben Goldacre—of badscience fame—recently took down nutrition quack Gillian McKeith in just this way, exposing her as a naked emperor to the world. Not only is “Dr” McKeith no such thing (paper mill documents don’t count), she doesn’t appear to have even the most basic grasp of the science involved in the cures and panaceas she advocates. As Goldacre points out:
She talks endlessly about chlorophyll, for example: how it’s “high in oxygen” and will “oxygenate your blood” – but chlorophyll will only make oxygen in the presence of light. It’s dark in your intestines, and even if you stuck a searchlight up your bum to prove a point, you probably wouldn’t absorb much oxygen in there, because you don’t have gills in your gut. In fact, neither do fish. In fact, forgive me, but I don’t think you really want oxygen up there, because methane fart gas mixed with oxygen is a potentially explosive combination.
Unfortunately, no amount of legal censure or proof debunking her scientific credentials appears to be able to sway public opinion, and “Dr” McKeith will probably have patients queuing for snake oil enemas and fairy dust supplements for many years to come.
I’ve always had a soft spot for UK television presenter Davina McCall, not only because she was funny and sexy, but because she made for watchable television. Her recent appearance on Paul Merton’s Room 101 saw her making such terrible anti-scientific and anti-intellectual statements though, that I doubt I can ever see her in the same light again. Keep in mind that Room 101 is a comedy show, and as such everything said on the show should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, even when said tongue in cheek, anti-scientific opinions put a damper on any potential humour.
The first item Davina wanted to rid the world of, was space travel. She simply did “not see the point of it”. The Beagle mission to Mars? A waste of money. Paul Merton brought up the possibility that we might one day need to leave this planet to ensure the survival of our species, as recently pointed out by Stephen Hawking. As Merton was explaining Hawking’s warning to her, McCall made yawning motions that would have made Homer Simpson proud, and said that she just found that immensely boring. Davina McCall isn’t a complete moron, which makes her anti-intellectualism so much worse.
To top it all, McCall claimed to believe that the moon landings were faked. She could of course have been joking, and I sincerely hope she was, but she wouldn’t be the only nutcase to believe this.
All in all, not the most enjoyable edition of Room 101 I’ve ever seen.
And so sayeth Chapter 272: Section 36. Blasphemy:
Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior.
I will pay the $300 fine for the first person to prove they’ve been found guilty of “contumeliously reproaching God”.
