Bill Maher

I'm actually excited about Bill Maher. If you haven't heard about it, Google his new movie Religulous. I've never really liked him, mostly because he buys into a lot of alternative medicine woo, but at least he understands the evolution "controversy:"

You shouldn't teach both sides of a debate when one side is a load of crap [. . .] 'Babies come from storks' is not a competing school of thought. In medical school, we shouldn't teach both. The media should not equate both.

This Couldn't Wait

I just finished pre-rounding on my patients, so I sat down at the computer to check my email, and I saw this news story on the homepage:

Fan Ejected from Yankee Stadium

I'm sorry, but I couldn't wait until I got home to record a video on this one. Apparently the fan was "forcibly escorted" out of the stadium after he got up to use the bathroom during God Bless America. A police officer told him to return to his seat, the man said "I don't care about this song," and the police officer immediately twisted his arm around his back and threw him out of the stadium. After tossing him through the turnstills, the police officer said "'get the hell out of my country if you don't like it." The police claim the man was beligerent and drunk, but all the witnesses have said this isn't true.

This is how it's going to happen. This is how our country will become a theocracy. When the police become autonomous, enforcing their own rules. This is sickening. This story sounds like something out of a futuristic utopia, something like V for Vendetta or 1984. This is too far. Right now, atheists need to stand up for themselves. Being an atheist is not a crime. This country was founded on the fucking right to get up and leave whenever the fuck you want. If this fan wanted to stand up, give the middle finger, and yell "There is no God," HE HAS THAT FUCKING RIGHT. Freedom of speech. But freedom isn't what it used to be. I hope these police officers get taken down. Tell me where to write a letter. I'm pissed.

Edit: George Carlin says it best.

Wear Your 'A' Proudly

Metal By Numbers Lyrics

Dennis' Post

John's Post

Call Me in the Morning

Fascination With Vaccination

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=186#more-186

Really, pass it on to your friends.

How Psychics Work

Check out this site, run by Robert Lancaster.

http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/

For more information, and an interview with Robert Lancaster, listen to The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Episode #87

Drugs Are Bad, Mmkay?

The Dragon In My Garage

Check out this essay by Carl Sagan, one of the founders of the skeptical movement. I've talked about ideas like this on here before, but I could never express it as elegantly as Dr. Sagan.

The Dragon In My Garage

Do You Believe The Magic Missile Theory?

Was the Death Star attack an inside job?

Courtesy of Episode #90 of The Skeptics' Guide

Anger: It Gets Shit Done

We Have A Dog!

We just got our new dog from the rescue society. She's a Pembroke Welsh Corgi mixed with... something? She's a little tall for a Corgi, but just as spunky. Her name is eV (pronounced "Eevee"). In chemistry and physics, an "eV" is a unit of energy equal to 1.602 x 10^-19 J. So she's a little bundle of energy! And yes, we are nerds.

Moons Over My Hammy

I don't mean to steal everything from Sharon's LiveJournal, but I had to post this. Here's the actual forum topic for background. Basically, some Christians believe that the moon emits its own light (like the sun) rather than reflecting the light from the sun, because it says so in the Bible:

Isaiah 30:26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

That's not enough for you? What about these passages:

Isaiah 13:10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

Ezekiel 32:7 And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.

Mathew: 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

Mark 13:24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

Reading this makes me feel like I have a brain freeze...

Psychiatry and Religion: What Is a Hallucination?