Ending the Year, Ending the Blog

I want to first thank those of you who sent in holiday wishes, especially LizDitz. (I shall always cherish the word "sausageness.")

I have been silently collecting my favorite fails and wins all year, hoping to do a year in review. Or maybe a "Nude Girls of Skepticism" calendar. I think that the former will get me less sued (more about that later).

Ideological enemies FoxNews and CNN share the award for the worst science reporting of the year in what is sort of a poopy parenthesis for the year. In January, FoxNews opened an article with the words:

The tremendous volcanic eruption thought to be responsible for Earth's largest mass extinction — which killed more than 70 percent of plants and dinosaurs walking the planet 250 million years ago — is still taking lives today.

Oh, the wrong. This one stuck in the treads of my sneakers all year. The second really, really bad job of communicating science to the public came from this month, just a few days ago, when CNN picked up something that Oprah had dropped.

Big fail in the summary, Sanjay, and your producers should be put into a dishwasher until they apologize. The eye scraping and nasal probing or "blockhead trick"...WTF? These are long-known carnival tricks and shamanistic charlatanry! Do 5 minutes of Internet research, Gupta, and let these woo-mongers have it.

This year, also saw the growth of my menagerie by one cat:

This cat's arrival threatened to turn my website into simply a series of updates about the cat. We slowly wormed his way into our hearts, not unlike a heartworm, and we eventually settled on about a dozen names for him, but his full Pastifarian name is Randini Gavin McLoud, or Gavin for short. Later, however, a miracle took place, and the image of Cthulu appeared on his forehead:

Beholding the image, everyone in my house instantly went insane, but Skepchick recognized the significance of this appearance, and Gavin appeared on Cute Animal Fridays. We still haven't heard from Joe Nickell, however.

Leaving a long unpleasant streak on my radar for the first time this year was Mike Adams, Health Clown. He did first appear long ago in a post called "Mike Adams, Docktor of Physik with An Especialitee in Malajustments of the Humours." I revisited him many times over the year, because he is such a twisted goofball. Adams is clearly a danger to public health and aesthetics:

The occasion for my coverage of him was the Dr. Rachie Shorty Kerfuffle, when a bunch of charlatans were cheating to win completely unearned health awards. Rachael ultimately won for achievements in the field of awesome. During this dust-up, I declared Jan 25th International Dr. Rachie Awareness Day, a day to remind us to keep Dr. Rachie in your hearts all year long. Out of this, HJHOP was mentioned a couple of times on the Skeptic Zone, a weekly podcast out of Australia that everyone should listen to, and which has spawned no small number of Australian luminaries of science education. I met many of them face to face for the first time at Dragon*Con. I was in a dowsing demonstration during Rachael and Richards Mystery Investigators show, which was a hoot, and I introduced myself afterward. We were attacked by ghost orbs during the resulting photos:

(I think the one above and to the left of Richard's head is probably a guardian angel, the one above and to the right of his head is probably spirit energy manifesting, the one way above Rachael's head is my great-grandmother, and the one next to her head is actually just a mote of dust reflecting the camera flash or possibly a light out of focus in the window behind us.) That night, we (Animala and I) heard that the Skeptic Track people were gathering in the hotel bar on the first floor. Rachael came by and talked to us for about 20 minutes, which was swell of her, and later we sat and talked to James Randi for about 15 minutes. Also temporarily depriving Australia of her immediate awesomeness was Kylie Sturgess, to whom I introduced myself and who delivered an ear-schredding squee and rib-shattering hug. It was great to finally meet her in person.

Regarding Answers in Genesis, it was a bountiful year. It started with Bodie Hodge's series on Really Embarrassingly Stupid Questions That Would Shame Most 5th Graders but that AiG Takes Seriously and culminated in the secular apotheosis of literalism that took up Answers In Genesis's challenge to "Stand unashamedly on the Bible." The site was mentioned on Pharyngula, and the campaign to stand on Bibles became part of the American vernacular, or at last used as and example of a literal metaphor on the site TVTropes (under tag "real life").

I expanded my guitar and guitar accessories collection to what is basically perfection, with the addition of a Les Paul Studio, which I love, a Korg A3 signal processor, which is fantastic, a Keeley Modded TS 9, and finally a VoxAC 30 amp:

The whole set up (which I have since trimmed down a little and put on a pedal board) is featured in a post from August.

Woo-wise, this was a very interesting year for me, because I came into more direct contact with the weirdness than ever before. For instance, I visited the Georgia Guidestones. I also went to a psychic fair, where I was introduced to Robert Barner's homeopathic biofeedback, which was the biggest, most transparent load of horse leavings I had ever encountered. At the same psychic fair, a psychic talked to my grandmother, showing an uncanny ability to contact the living. Oh, I also got my cat certified in homeopathy; we were all so proud of her. I also attended my first webinar and live-tweeted Meryl Dorey's antivax strangeness. I, and most of Midtown, protested the Westboro Baptist Church's visit to Atlanta.

My increased contact with the world of woo, however, brought me some unwanted attention, which I have not written about here. These incidents have made me reconsider having a pseudonymous website, and I now feel that it will be better in the next year for me to write "on the record," as it were, under my own name in a new venue.

The first incident came after Dragon*Con. I had been to a pair of presentations by Chris Fleming, of the despicable show Psychic Kids. After his second talk, I recorded my exchange with him during the Q&A, when I asked if there was anyone who was independent of the show to looking after the children's interests. (The answer I got was basically, "What? My co-host is not independent?") This is an extremely important facet of normal, legitimate research, because kids are classified as an especially vulnerable population, and Hollywood has rules about kids working. I broadcast this conversation on my podcast. A lawyer in the Georgia AG's office has since said that I probably was within my rights to do so, but a few days after the podcast went up, I was contacted by the organizers of the Skeptic Track, Derek and Swoopy, both of whom I respect immensely. Swoopy sent me a strongly worded email, which warned me that if I did not take down the podcast, I could expect to hear from the Con's lawyers. My sense is that the lawyers affiliated with the show had complained about the podcast, and the Con wanted to send a clear message, which, holy shit, did they ever! Basically, I was told that I had jeopardized the entire existence of the Skeptic Track. I was, of course, not a representative of the Skeptic Track in any way shape or form. I was simply attending. Nonetheless, the recording came down instantly and I sent profuse apologies to... just about everyone in the world. When Skepchick recently raised the issue of that horrid show's renewal, I really wished that the recording was still around to inform the debate, but it was gone. The whole affair was deeply humiliating and frustrating.

Just about the time that I was starting to come back to post regularly on my site, I received an email from my boss to contact him or her at home. My boss wanted to let me know that I was going to be receiving a note from the office of Human Resources who had received a complaint about a website called Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes. This was a shock to me, since I have always tried to keep my work life and free time separate, and I have consciously never made my connection to any place of work public on the site. It has always been my own personal clubhouse, no work allowed. Hell, I don't even get email from the site at my work address. At any rate, someone creepily made the connection and talked to my superiors. I felt personally threatened, as nobody had contacted me about any factual errors or anything. This was when I restricted access to the site for a few days, which confused a number of regular readers. I was trying to ensure that if I had said something that was factually wrong, that I would try to, in good faith, limit the spread of any possible misinformation before the person/people contacted me. I still have no idea who complained or what the problem was. In the end I was not personally contacted by anyone about anything, so the site went back up.

And it will stay up.

This website has brought me immense amounts of joy and I have met a number of great people through it. It has been completely worth the time and trouble at all points, and the people who have participated over the years have made me immensely glad to have bothered. Nonetheless, I'm sure that I can do more as not-a-toad, and I want to write on the record. I have lined up a couple of higher-profile writing/speaking gigs with outside skeptical groups. I have a busy semester ahead of me and a lot of publishing to accomplish over the coming months. If there was ever a time to set aside this magnificent toy of a website, it would be now.

Keep this site on your RSS feeds for now, as I will make an announcement here of my new digs when I land. I do plan to continue contributing to the conversations we started here, just in a different forum, and I'd be happy to see you there as well. I am starting a much better thing, folks, and it would be a shame if you missed it.

HJ/B

Holiday wrap up...

The day is drawing to a close. Presents have been opened. A large meal has been consumed. Everyone has gone home. The Dr. Who Christmas Special has been watched. It's pretty much over, so I'll sum up.

A meeting with extended family is often an opportunity to ply my trade in public. Some of them sort of know what I do, the type of stuff I teach about, so I often get a couple questions about pop culture stuff. This year, it was about The Fourth Kind. So, my cousin's husband asked me what I thought about it. Did I think that it was real? Well, everyone in the movie has a credit, including the people who are supposed to be in "documentary" footage. Also, I just read Whitley Strieber's Communion. A lot of that movie was lifted wholesale from that book, for instance, the owls that are serving as "masking memories."

"They said that it was based on a true story."

"Well, people do go missing in Nome, Alaska, but they disappear after they've been drinking. There's a similar movie in the works right now, Apollo 18, which will also pretend to be 'found footage'."

Now, the featured event was my first meeting with my sister's boyfriend, who I had not met. I had been warned that he was an arch-conservative and that I should not talk about... anything... with him. Indeed, this was one of the reasons I started my blog, to make sure that I had somewhere to spout off without upsetting my family.

But it was on.

I don't have great interest in the health care bill. But someone mentioned it and he suddenly appeared. And he was ready to go into it. I obliged.

He told me that Obama had told a bunch of elderly people in a speech that they should basically look into hospice, in the sense that the government would rather not pay for long-term end of life care. I asked him to find the speech for me, and handed him an iPad. He couldn't. But he was sure. He remembered seeing it. It was just a short part of the speech.

I vaguely remembered that speech. So, I went to a site that had collected all of Obama's speeches, did a subject search for "hospice" and I found the only occasions where he used the word. It happened about 4 times. Because he said that he said Obama used it in front of old people, I decided that it was probably his townhall in front of AARP. (Not a place I would think anyone would probably ever push death panels.) Guess what? Obama did not announce to a bunch of old people that he was going to kill them.

Also, I pointed out to the guy that the Obama plan was originally floated by the Republicans.

Heehee. I love evidence.

HJ

The war on Christmas just got stooopid...

Yep. You saw that. And some of them think that they are adults.

HJ

The Christmas thing...

So, after a glass of wine, my mother, a lightweight, wondered where she went wrong with her kids. I reminded her that I was one of her kids and that I was there in the room. And as far as I was concerned, I was pretty good. I mean, I got a nice job at a great school where I get to do lots of neat things. I occasionally donate time to various animal related causes. I have nothing left to prove to myself. I'm satisfied. How's that wrong, I wondered.

"Ah, but my kids they don't... Hell, you're an atheist."

Fuck, I thought we were past this. "Yeah? And I'm fine. I hardly ever kill people. I'm pretty nice."

"But do you believe in God?"

"Well, to be completely accurate, I don't know, but I'm vanishingly certain that there is no evidence for it."

"Do you believe in science?"

"No, science has proven itself to me. It's not like I have to have faith in the same sense that science works. I don't think that 'having faith' is in itself necessarily a positive quality."

"Well, I think it can be, and it depends on the person."

"Then stop haranguing me about being an atheist."

"But what about all the good that religion does? The music is good."

"Well, yeah the music is nice, but that doesn't make what it celebrates true. And the good things, sure, some people do nice things in the name of religion. I do nice things, however, in my own name because they are nice things to do."

"What did it for you?"

"How did I lose faith?"

"I don't know, I think I grew up. What made me realize in no uncertain terms that religion's primary interest was not others but itself was the priest scandal, but I was already on my way out...."

"Yeah, the Church took a big hit there. Lost a lot of people. That's when I decided that the hierarchy is not the church, but the people are."

"Yeah, well, your Church disagrees."

"But the people do lots of good...."

"And the Church takes credit for it."

"What do you mean?" She wasn't having it.

"I mean that I hang out with a lot of really nice people, most of them atheists."

"And I'm sure that they are nice people."

Ignoring what was should have been a given, I continued, "The Church has nothing to do with the fact that they are nice, and that I can get along with people everywhere. The Church swoops in, takes credit for people being nice to each other, and people shrug and say, sure. I don't get that. The golden rule is not some sort of mystical truth. It seems to be par for the course. I just don't feel the need to take credit for it like the Church does."

Then we had lunch.

HJ

Light Google Bomb and Get Away...Powerbalance Edition...

Did you see what Power Balance wrote on their website?

POWER BALANCE WRISTBANDS

In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility.

We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

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To obtain a refund please visit our website www.powerbalance.com.au or contact us toll-free on 1800 733 436

This offer will be available until 30th June 2011. To be eligible for a refund, together with return postage, you will need to return a genuine Power Balance product along with proof of purchase (including credit card records, store barcodes and receipts) from an authorised reseller in Australia.

This Corrective Notice has been paid for by Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd and placed pursuant to an undertaking to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission given under section 87B of the Trade Practices Act, 1974.

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HJ

Haha! France gets all the crazy people...

Turns out, if you live in one little obscure town in France, you will be saved by the subterranean aliens who live there and will be whisked away to safety when the world ends in 2012.

Sucks to be France.

HJ

The week in conspiracy (Christmas edition)

Even though I am officially on winter break, it turns out that irrational fear and paranoia never take a break.

Shit, I'm starting to sound like a PSA. Well, at least it gives me something to fall back on.

Anyway, this week brought forth new variations on the old stories that we are all so familiar with.

• Fox's pundits seem to have taken the attack on Prince Charles and Camilla in stride, by which I mean, panicking over the upcoming socialist revolution!
• Of course, Fox would never promote a transparently bogus conspiracy theory.
• Rahm Emmanuel has his own Birthers! Very cute. (With a shout out to my buddy John at Johnsebben.com for pointing this one out to me.)
• Birther who refused to deploy now faces 3 years in prison. Good.
• This one is...just odd. First Harvard spawns the Unabomber, now the LGBT pee-vandal.
• I'm dreading the upcoming conspiracy theories that will doubtlessly be spawned by Apollo 18, the film that will not take the hint that The Fourth Kind sucked and every associated with it should send me a personal apology in iambic pentameter.
• A vague sense of conspiracism suffuses this article written by the only old lady who uses the Internet. (I am, of course, assuming that all old ladies are just like my mom.)
• My favorite article title of the week: "When Brains are Outlawed Only Outlaws Will Have Brains." Indeed. (From the notorious Canada Free Press.)
• Evil truth-suppressing judicial cabal dismisses charges against guy selling conspiracy theories in Dealey Plaza.
• David Aaronovich appears on the Lay Scientist to discuss a variety of conspiracy theories.
• Turns out Wikileaks was able to find Obama's Birth Certificate.
• Wikileaks Leaker Bradley Manning is a Fictitious Person. I mean, asks the author, where are the interviews of his parents? HMMM? Answer that one. Buahahaha!
• Wikileaks is populated by Jew-haters.
• Also, it is a Zionist conspiracy supported by the Mossad. If you don't understand how it can't be both, that's not my problem! :)
• I'm sorry. I take it back. My favorite title this week is, "Why they want to homosexualize the military."
• Nevada's GOP preoccupied with conspiracy theories.
• NASA confirms that David Icke is right: the moon is hollow. (I mean, the moon rings like a bell, and bells are hollow. QED, biatches!)
• Ooops! Scratch that Illuminati Jesuit conspiracy. It was actually the RAND Corporation planning to start WWIII. And they foolishly, as super villains often do, allowed full access of their super secret files to a total nutter.
• Age of Autism finds that John Stossel's brother has BIG PHARMA TIES! Declines to explain, So what?
• The Deadly Broccoli Uprising!
• Paul discovers my beat!

Conspiracy Theory of the Week:

How the Animated Series G.I. Joe Predicted Today’s Illuminati Agenda

HJ

Camille is such a biaaatch!

I have no idea who Camille is. But that hasn't stopped a bunch of fans of what can only be a rotten show, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (I've never seen it, but I've never heard the term "Real Housewives" used in a way that was not interchangeable with "gutterfolk," so I'll roll with it), from posting on HJHOP. They found me because I recently posted about Allison DuBois, the fake psychic who humiliated herself on that show a week ago. Seriously, the fans of the show seem to think that just because I have no comment filter they should deface my website with what I'm sure to them appear to be ideas, but which is more akin, as far as I can tell, to some sort of Internet-based dirty protest.

Nonetheless, I am more than happy to look at a couple of the dimwitted comments about psychics that have appeared on my site. For, as the kids say, lulz. A good one came from "Anonymous," though I think that is a pseudonym:

I think her little stint on Housewives was career suicide. Not that I ever thought she was a real "psychic" or "medium". I'm furious after seeing that episode.

Ah, very good! A clear-headed skeptic! Huzzah!

A real medium does not possess those qualities that she was exhibiting (regardless whether it was alcohol or not).

Fuck.

With all that negative engery she has...there's no way she can tap into anything.

So, you can tell if someone has energy just by looking at them? Why can't I do that? Actually, this, I think, reveals a lot, if I might theorize for a second (and I damn well might). If you like them, they are psychic. If you do not like them, they are not psychic. It seems to me that this is somehow an extrapolation of confirmation bias, that somehow whether or not you accept what someone says depends on how you feel about them, whether they confirm your idea of what a psychic should be, not whether or not they are actually psychic. And why would a paying customer go to a mean psychic? (All psychics who are not insane, by the way, are mean.)

Especially after her comment she made about knowing when Kyle will die and what would happen to her family......that is just something a real medium would never in a million years say or even think in such a vendictive way.

Why not? Actually, this is true, and perhaps there is some cultural conditioning going on here. I have a hypothesis that people have been conditioned to have really low standards for psychics. Essentially if they say nice things about you or your dead people, then you are happy.

I feel bad for people who pay to see her.

Love and light man. This woman is a fraud.

Love and light? Are you Anna Robles? Here, let me put out some bad vibes~~~~~~~ There!

The next head-bashingly endumbening reply came from Maria, and this is damned painful:

I am going to say this.

"This." There. I said it. I'd say it again.

MY name is Maria I am a Spiritual Medium/Spiritual Advisor. Believe me or not I DONT Care.

That's great, so I can have guilt-free fun at your expense! Whee!

I Have been gifted for 16 years.

Are you sure the word your mom used wasn't "special"? Or do you perhaps mean that you have been passed around like a holiday fruitcake? Or are you both special and a fruitcake. I bet that's it.

Let me go on to tell you guys.

If what's past is prologue, what is it when it's all prologue? Does that mean that you are already done? Funk dat.

I saw the housewives show on thrusday and i picked up on alot about the Allison. I was very much surprised of how she acted. What i saw of her she is a evil person.

Wow. You must be psychic to have read all of the other boneheaded comments.

if she does have these gifts as she says there not from God. Need I SAY MORE?

Your homophones and prepositions are from Belzebub's backside, sweetie. And please don't say anything more. Why don't people who are kissed with the gift by God ever gifted rudimentary punctuation or capitalization skills, as in:

KYLE is not going to be divorcing her hubby or vice versa. I have picked up alot about KYLE and none of Allison said is true.!

Also, Kyle is a guy. Why would he be divorcing some woman's hubby? Or, vice versa, why would someone's husband be divorcing someone named Kyle, who is presumably a man?

I AM Typing all this on my moblie

Heehee. The LORD JEHOVAH is typing. Or I AM WHO AM MISTYPING ON MY MOBILE.

so its hard to explain everything.

That's just the words part, hon. Really, don't feel obliged to continue.

ANYONE WANT FREE READINGS I WILL GIVE YOU GUYS 1 FREE READING ON THE HOUSE! I FEEL everyone needs at least 1 free reading.. email with number @ divineheavenlyangels@hotmail.com

I'm going to do a little psychic experiment here...I'm reaching out into the universe and drawing on the powers of the Big Woozle in the Sky to divine that her name is regal...Lion? Lyons. Her name is Maria Lyons, and she is a transplant to Florida from Texas....I am using my psychic powers to peek into her mind...and...she is from...central, no, south-central Texas, from a very small town in Marina...Medina County--Natalia. So, San Antonio? She was born in...1983...a Taurus. April 25. Last week, her PC crashed and I have a strong psychic feeling that she has been perfectly ignored by...Tori Spelling? Really? Whatevs. Maria is really beautiful, actually, with long dark hair and dark eyes. I know this because I have a picture of her: http://www.divineheavenlyangels.net/resources/marai2.jpg), if I wanted a PI to follow her.

In order to really fuck with someone's brain, all a psychic needs is a phone number or some basic identifying information. You can get a name from that and an address, and then anything that a PI can look up in a LexisNexis database is available to the even the least literate psychic. Your life becomes an open book. I have already, in about 10 minutes, zoomed in on her identity precisely, identified some of her lotion-peddling friends. It would be wrong of me to befriend her on facebook and root about for info that way, and I have a conscience. But, really, who can afford to hire a PI?

Well, Maria can make it worth her while. You can see from her services page that she will not only take lots of money for doing nothing, but will also take more money for doing nothing, accepting donations as well as money for "psychic" services. (There's a reason her sign, Taurus, is that of the "bull".)

For five dollars a day, she will contact your angels. I presume she can promise this because she is holding the angels hostage in her basement and tortures them for information. For $90, she'll cast a prayer spell (or at least tell you she will) on your behalf. For a mere $100 she'll fuck up your memories of your dearly departed. (I don't know why granny needs the $100 on the other side, but I'm sure Maria will get it to her.) If you have 2 hours and $175 that you don't think would be better to give to the James Randi Education Foundation or used on porn or something, she'll teach you how contact your angels. Fuck! They're my angels! Gimme! Or, if you are completely without a clue, she will be your friend for $450 a month. Really. For $450 a month, I sure would have a PI do some digging.

Don't advertise your lame psychic performance art on my site, angel-knickers. I believe that every psychic deserves at least one free warning.

HJ

"Apart from the Marines, they're all dead butch"

A little precision swanning about to celebrate the repeal of DADT!

I mean the Inniskillin Fusiliers and the Anglian Regiment are all right if you're interested in the art nouveau William Morris revival bit, but if you really want a regiment of the line that is really saying something about interior decor, then you've got to go for the Durham Light Infantry.

I think that is all of the gay army humor (or in this case, humour) I have. In all seriousness, it's a great day. Something rescued from this depressing lame duck session. Now, give them a country worth dying for and legalize gay marriage.

HJ

Allison DuBois is Bullshit

Yeah, I noticed that there was a spike in traffic related to medium-performance artist Allison Dubois, who is a yeasty, curdled discharge. Most of the searches were "Allison Dubois bullshit."

I always knew that swearing phonetically for four years would eventually land me 18 additional hits.

Anyway, I have posted on bullshitting bullshitter Allison "I am so full of bullshit I have bullshit coming out of my tear ducts" Dubois, or "Senora Bullshit of Bullshitania" as she is known to her friends. And it seems that she said "bullshit" on TV. No, I don't mean talking the total bullshit that she talks constantly when she bullshits bullshittingly with bullshit imaginary dead people (which is nothing but the barest, most absolute and concentrated bullshit you are likely to find, the exploitive shrew). It seems like Allison DuBois (DuBois means, "of, related, or pertaining to bullshit" in French) was on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (which is apparently a show) tonight and said, "Bullshit."

Of course, I also found that Medium was cancelled in November.

Ha, as they say, ha.

You can read the old posts, which I am rather proud of at "Allison DuBois and Oprah Winfrey in the Matrix" and "Allison DuBois: As Evil as a Four-Dollar Bill." These two articles were part of the Skeptics Circle, when we used to do that. Good times, good times.

HJ

Morgan Freeman Dead. Is Morgan Freeman Alive?

It turns out, yes he is! Yay!

Breaking News: Morgan Freeman Not Dead

I've waited so long to use that headline and then confirm that it is wrong. Ah, love it!

HJ

Bill Donohue has been writing drunk emails again!

Bill Donohue actually wrote this and sent it out, apparently on purpose:

BEWARE OF CHRISTMAS PARTIES

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the advice given by the British law firm, BPE Solicitors, on how to handle Christmas parties:

This British law firm offers indispensable advice. "Christmas parties, with their mix of drink, high spirits and merriment, are one of the main potential sources of problems." Exactly right—this mix is combustible. But what problems are they talking about? "The claims which are most likely to arise are those around sexual harassment, bullying, assault and discrimination." Prudence dictates that the party be cancelled, but we at the Catholic League are going to risk it and see what happens.

The law firm does not lack for specifics. "Protection from harassment and discrimination relate to unwanted conduct on the grounds of sex, age, disability, gender reassignment, religion or belief, race, marital status and sexual orientation." Wow. The good news is that the Brits opt for the correct term—sex—which conveys a nature-based reason for sexual differences. The bad news is that they use the term "gender reassignment" when, in fact, it is not gender that is being "reassigned": the surgery alters one's anatomy. In any event, we are fortunate not to have any gender reassigned people working at the Catholic League (as far as I can tell, anyway), though I've had my doubts about a few recent applicants. Nice to know, too, that "belief" merits the same status as religion. If you can believe it.

The Brits also warn that at the Christmas party, "Muslim employees may feel excluded if the only religion option is an alcohol fueled trip to the pub." Good thing we don't hire any—all we do is go to pubs.

Finally, they suggest that employers should "identify areas where staff from other religions might be disadvantaged and then consider how those arrangements could be changed to overcome those disadvantaged." We don't have this problem either—we simply order them to convert and be done with it.

You are a hateful vomit-shrew, Bill. A wretched, sad failure of what superficially looks sort of like a human if you squint hard enough. Everything you are is perfectly wrong, and I'd pity you if you weren't so hateful and vile.

HJ

This week in conspiracy (12/13)

It's been Monday all day, more than enough time for me to get to This Week in Conspiracy, so let's get right to it.

• I can't wait for Google to give me the mark of the beast!
• Robert Redford's got a movie about John Wilkes Booth? Hm.
• Perfect failure of a human being, Mike "Health Muppet" Adams, is scared of fluoridation. Of course, he talks about the researchers infecting Guatemalans with STDs between 1946-1948 as if it is happening now, but that's only because, as far as I can tell, he never understood a single fucking thing that he has ever read.
• Yay! Permanent war! I mean...SHIT!
• In a sinister development, the government has started a website to combat conspiracy theories at http://www.america.gov/conspiracy_theories.html
• This...er...uh...hm. No idea.
• DARPA initiating "total tyranny program," also known as Operation Fuzzy Bunny.
• Drug-addled vomit monster Rush "Mike Adams" Limbaugh wants Assange to find Obama's birth certificate.
• You thought I was going to go a week without mentioning Gordon Duff, didn't you? Well, too bad.
• HOLY NO SHIT, BATMAN! China has Windows source code!
• Wikileaks is, or isn't, going to announce, or not announce, files related or unrelated to UFOs.
• Pakistan gets Punk'd by anti-Indian Ashton Kutcher.
• Good for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, who does everything short of calling Jesse Ventura a rotten, low-life sensationalist windbag of fail.
• Did the Roman Piso family write the Bible, and if so, so what?
• A truly hilarious and befuddling video about the occult symbolism of China's Olympic closing ceremonies.
• Star Trek is a globalist fantasy.
• I rather liked this approach to climate change conspiracies.
• Bulgarian Orthodox Church head: "I am alive."
• American Free Press: Beware Jewish Centrism!?!?@@!@111panic!
• The reason the security line is so slow at the airport is that the radiated people at the front of the line have to climb over the bodies.

Conspiracy Theory of the Week (this was a tough one--either this or the Olympics one!):

• Egyptian official thinks Israel may be behind shark attacks.

You're welcome, and I'm sorry.

HJ

How could an adult ever take Mike Adams seriously after this?

I have seen some stupid shit in my day, much of it emanating from Mike Adams' website, but this one takes the taco. It's...so...mind-warpingly endumbening that there is nothing left to do but declare Mike Adams' career as a self-styled "Health Ranger" over and inaugurate an era of his new career, wombat-licking crazy hobo shouting on the street corner. Seriously.

It's called, and I am not at all exaggerating:

Principle of astrology proven to be scientific: planetary position imprints biological clocks of mammals

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

It opens with this charming sentence:

Mention the word "astrology" and skeptics go into an epileptic fit.

For a health ranger, you sure treat epileptics like garbage, you turd-blast.

The idea that someone's personality could be imprinted at birth according to the position of the sun, moon and planets has long been derided as "quackery" by the so-called "scientific" community which resists any notion based on holistic connections between individuals and the cosmos.

The problems with this sentence are many, so let's just dwell on the most obvious ones. 1) "Holistic" is undefined. 2) It was made by Mike Adams. 3) We are all connected to the cosmos; hell, we're part of it--didn't you ever see Sagan's...sorry, thought I was talking to an adult. Of course you haven't, you ridiculous man-child. 4) Position of planets relative to what? Earth? The sun? Each other? 5) By so-called, he means, "actual." 6) We'd love to understand any actual effect on personality of the celestial world, but there is as of yet no evidence that this is the case, there is no plausible mechanism by which those effects could be felt, and 7) HOLYSHITWHATAREYOULIVINGINTHE

FUCKINGMIDDLEAGESYOUHOPELESSFAILURE?

It's not even quackery. Astrology is an embarrassment to quackery!

According to the conventional view, your genes and your parenting determine your personality, and the position of planet Earth at the time of your birth has nothing to do with it.

Then again, conventional scientists don't believe the position of the moon has anything to do with life on Earth, either.

The phrase "conventional scientists" shouldn't exist, first of all. The only scientists are the ones who bend to convention, not flaky spandex-wearing half-men like you, Mike.

They dismiss the wisdom that farmers have known for ages -- that planting seeds or transplanting living plants in harmony with the moon cycles results in higher crop yields.

Well, if a farmer says it, it must be true. It's like a new type of logical fallacy: ad agricolam. Show me your fucking data, pants-boy.

Even the seeds inside humans are strongly influenced by the moon, as menstruation cycles and moon cycles are closely synchronized (28 days, roughly).

That's why when a woman takes birth control, the phases of the moon stop! Also, it's why all women's periods are perfectly synchron...'Aaaang on!!

Skeptics must be further bewildered by the new research published in Nature Neuroscience and conducted at Vanderbilt University which unintentionally provides scientific support for the fundamental principle of astrology -- namely, that the position of the planets at your time of birth influences your personality.

In this study, not only did the birth month impact personality; it also resulted in measurable functional changes in the brain.

This study, conducted on mice, showed that mice born in the winter showed a "consistent slowing" of their daytime activity. They were also more susceptible to symptoms that we might call "Seasonal Affective Disorder."

How much do you want to bet that he misreads this study? Anyone? Anyone?

It turns out, these researchers drew up natal charts for a bunch of rats and, holy shit, they were able to predict that the little guys would have bald tails and love cheese! Actually, not really. According to the abstract, the study, "Perinatal photoperiod imprints the circadian clock," reveals:

Using real-time gene expression imaging and behavioral analysis, we found that the perinatal photoperiod has lasting effects on the circadian rhythms expressed by clock neurons as well as on mouse behavior, and sets the responsiveness of the biological clock to subsequent changes in photoperiod. These developmental gene × environment interactions tune circadian clock responses to subsequent seasonal photoperiods and may contribute to the influence of season on neurobehavioral disorders in humans.

Uh...astrology? I see..."developmental gene × environment interactions", which sounds an assload like "your genes and your parenting"--that is, genetics and environment, and if part of your environment is the length of the day...well, so be it. Hardly a radical shift in our thinking about how personalities come about. It's not predicting events, it's making no exact predictions about individuals, it has exactly fuck-all to do with the position of the planets. It has to do with the length of the day.

Of course, this has as much to do with astrology as does a related article on the same web page as the abstract of the article you are failing to understand: "Photoperiodism in the Plant Kingdom". Mike goes on, fizzle that he is:

The study was carried out by Professor of Biological Sciences Douglas McMahon, graduate student Chris Ciarleglio, post-doctoral fellow Karen Gamble and two additional undergraduate students, none of whom believe in astrology, apparently. They do, of course, believe in science, which is why all their study findings have been draped in the language of science even though the findings are essentially supporting principles of astrology.

They don't believe in astrology. They don't believe in astrology. They don't believe in astrology. They don't believe in astrology. Tattoo that on the ass of your sheep, just to make sure that you remind yourself of it every night. The people who you are citing, you enfeebled nitwit, don't believe in astrology. Day length is determined by the speed of a planet's rotation on its axis, not its position relative to the sun or planets. You're pathetic.

"What is particularly striking about our results is the fact that the imprinting affects both the animal's behavior and the cycling of the neurons in the master biological clock in their brains," said Ciarleglio. This is one of the core principles of astrology: That the position of the planets at the time of your birth (which might be called the "season" of your birth) can actually result in changes in your brain physiology which impact lifelong behavior.

Swing and a miss! Here you have it, people! A man bad at everything! (Except, inexplicably, selling vitamins and quack cures.)

Once again, such an idea sounds preposterous to the scientifically trained, unless of course they discover it for themselves, at which point it's all suddenly very "scientific." Instead of calling it "astrology," they're now referring to it as "seasonal biology."

Another thing that occurs to me as I mull over epithets to describe you, your family, your pets, and your primary school teachers, is that this is an animal study, not a study of humans. That even if you were right, and, man (I use the term loosely), are you so wrong in every way, you still could not extrapolate and say that it reliably predicted anything in humans, much less any individual human.

We are made of star stuff, says Carl Sagan. He he's right: We are not only made of star stuff, we are influenced by that stuff, too. And finally, modern science is beginning to catch up to this greater truth that astrologers have known since the dawn of human existence on our tiny planet.

Carl Sagan would hold you down and fuck you retarded, Adams.

I need to calm down. Kitties it is.

HJ

UPDATE! GOOGLE RUINED MY MOMENT OF KITTY ZEN IN, LIKE, THE WORST WAY IMAGINABLE!

Stranger than fiction...

It's taken me four years, but I finally get to make the following pop culture reference:

(My god, those sweaters are war crimes. Sure, we

were no longer wearing polyester pants, but at what cost?)

Reproductive scientists create mice from 2 fathers

HJ (via Skepchick)

MIke Adams Inadvertently Reassures Me That the CDC Does Not Listen To Feeble Antivax Cranks

My father is an OB/GYN and, I'll say it, new mothers-to-be are often a very nervous group of people. Don't get me wrong, it might just be the parasite talking, but they ask questions like, "Is shampoo bad while I'm pregnant?" (Answer: Not if you don't drink gallons of it.) So, what about pregnancy and vaccinations? I mean, there you are actually injecting something into a woman. (Needles + pregnancy + fear)^ignorance = catnip for predatory fear-mongers like Mike Adams.

He can't help himself, I suppose. He is ruthlessly exploitive. He uses people's fears to sell them their dreams. There is no more simple marketing strategy, though that does not make it ethical. So, what is this grass-eating glob of monkey mucus saying? It came in an email to me this morning entitled:

H1N1 vaccine linked to 700 percent increase in miscarriages

Mike, you are a menace to women, children, and public health. But you are also an ass-clown.

The article is especially feeble, and once you start digging into it, it falls apart like a corpse being dragged along the highway, only more grotesque.

Recent data presented to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Children's Vaccines has revealed some shocking information about the effects of the H1N1 / swine flu vaccine on pregnant women. According to the report, the rate of miscarriage among pregnant women during the 2009 H1N1 / swine flu pandemic soared by over 700 percent compared to previous years, pointing directly to the vaccine as the culprit -- but the CDC denies the truth and continues to insist nobody has been harmed.

OK, so it was not, technically, a study designed by scientists or epidemiologists. It was presented to the CDC by Eileen Dannemann, who runs the National Coalition of Organized Women (those disorganized women could never present anything to the CDC!). Adams makes the mistake of giving the woman's name and the name of her organization, because even the most cursory look their website reveals that they are merely a faulty CAPS LOCK button away from being Time-Cube guy. Across the top of their website is the headline:

National Coalition Of Organized Women Looking For Those Who Have Had Adverse Reactions To Flu Shots

Why do I think that they might have an agenda? Hm. And you look at their website, and it is a testament to the post hoc fallacy and the deservedly beaten redheaded stepchild of scientific evidence, the anecdote.

Take for instance the compilation of anecdotes included in the report to the CDC. You can't discern anything like causality in these stories because they don't have a control. They simply don't. I also failed to see anywhere in the assembled materials that the spontaneous abortion rate in the HEALTHY population is somewhere around 20%. 1-in-five. That's not at all an unlikely outcome of pregnancy!

They go to the VAERS database, which, as Bill Atkinson of the CDC told the Atlanta Skeptics, accumulates a massive amount of information about vaccines, including adverse events (not the same as adverse reactions, mind you). As far as I can tell, they have pulled 222 anecdotes of miscarriages following vaccines from the data. That's 222 cases of so-the-fuck-whats? It looks like it was compiled on behalf of some sort of legal action, but I don't know which. I can only imagine that it failed fucking miserably.

Even though I looked everywhere on the website for a single controlled study--anything with a control group, really-- that illustrated...anything. None is present. That means, by necessity, that this wacky activist group is fundamentally incapable of establishing causality.

The Health Retard fails again! Keep it up, Mike!

HJ

Attorneys level their quack-zooka at PZ Meyers...

Seriously, people. This is ridiculous. Naturopathic "doctor" Christopher Maloney, who will henceforth will be represented by the following symbol: had...apparently a lawyer who is a relative (the only lawyer who would take the case?) sent PZ Myers a letter some 8 months after's supporters had criticism of homeopathic quackery taken off of the Internet. This has the slowest lawyers in the profession, apparently. Actually, this titmouse sent me a couple of messages too, because not only is he a litigious fuckwit, but because he has delusions of significance.

Actually, my responses have some of my favorite slams in here, so I think that I will repost them, for old time's sake:

Anonymous said...

Hello, zombie drone,

Perhaps you missed the cry of your master, PZ? It wasn't me, please try to keep up.

FEBRUARY 19, 2010 9:21:00 PM CST

Bing said...

Dear ,

Lick it, fraud. How do you sleep at night? I mean, really? What's wrong with your conscience? Seriously, energy healers? Vaccine denial? You're a goddamned menace and deserve a damned thorough financial bankruptcy to go along with your complete moral bankruptcy.

I'll have you know that I have a long history of opposition to useless shitbags.

You will notice, you illiterate subnorm, that my original post says, "the people who support this bullshizzle" are the ones who did this, you ego-surfing sack of putrescence. This is because I was being as precise as I could be--notice I did not name you and that my syllogism (a logical argument) needs not PZ's assertions to hold true.

I vomit on your dog, you taint stain.

HJ

FEBRUARY 19, 2010 9:36:00 PM CST

Anonymous said...

After a diatribe like that, you have the gall to moderate my comments? Unfortunately, you display the standard level of intelligence of Myers' followers. Not a scientist among you, but you seem to know a good deal of profanity.

APRIL 16, 2010 9:12:00 PM CST

Bing said...

You don't know what gall is, but that's only because you aren't a real medical practitioner. And it's not just you, you self-centered glob of petrified rabbit droppings. All old posts are moderated after a few weeks. I was getting spammed by someone who was mentally ill and therefore had an excuse for being a trolling crap-monster, but that also means that other trolling crap-monsters like you, as well as useful members of society, have to wait before I automatically approve all comments, you fucking crybaby.

Intellectually and morally I am your superior, and I consider you a child. Yes, I swear, but, you see, only an infantile pigfucker would confuse the packaging for the content (even though I can sort of imagine you at Christmas complaining that all you got for Christmas again were boxes covered with wrapping paper).

So, what I think I am saying is that you can drown in a toilet for all I care, you desiccated ferret uterus.

HJ

HJ