Saturday, January 08, 2011

And More Than That ...

A quick update to an earlier story I posted on. I hope the posters at Jim Hoft's site read this story about Egyptian muslims protecting Egyptian christians on Egyptian X-mas.

That's the coolest thing I've read in a while. It's a start, anyways.

Your Sometimes Hopeful leader.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Honey Dipped Flim Flam

Although I thought this was already done, Andrew Wakefield's autism study has been declared a fraud. Not just mistaken; out-and-out fraud. Anderson Cooper interviews him and gets to the point. Wakefield sees a conspiricy against him and is standing by his work, facts be damned. He also keeps pitching his book, which is standard scientific procedure, I'm told. Cooper has a golden line when Wakefield tells him to read the book for more information; "If you're lying, the book is also a lie." Anyway, it's a good takedown. (Edit: Link to the actual article)

Of course, the anti-Vax folks continue to support Wakefield, despite the medicine being against them, because they don't care about facts. The folks at Science Based Medicine, as well as Elyse Anders of SkepChick and Parenting Within Reason have been wonderful about countering anti-Vaccination claims and showing them to be false. Make no mistake. There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, and there is evidence that they save lives by lowering the incidence of disease.

Now Wakefield is peddling his bullshit to the Minnesota Somali community. Hopefully they will understand that Wakefield is a fraud and a charlatan and will tell him to go to hell.

Well, I'm off to go over my finances and see if we can afford to keep the Spinoff and still survive. Seeing how hard it is to make it on $250,000 a year, I'm not sure how we can possibly get by on 1/2 of that. Anyone know if I can sell my spleen?

Your Two Posts in One Week? Must Be Bored leader

Monday, January 03, 2011

Happy New Year, 2011

I've found it's much harder to type with a baby on your lap than a cat. Coupled with a just plain awful Vikings season, I haven't been blogging much. I'm sure that won't change, even when I'm staying home with The Spinoff.

On the other hand, the Internet is so full of mockable idiocy.

Like Jim Hoft, who says President Obama made up dead muslims in an attack on a christian church in Egypt. Of course, what Obama actually said was there were muslims who were "victims" of the attack. Which, since 8 muslims were injured, is true, unless Hoft thinks you have to be killed by a bomb to be a victim of it.

It takes 50 comments on Hoft's site before someone mentions that muslims may possibly have been injured, mostly because everyone is busy calling Obama a muslim, a terrorist sympathiser and a "towelhead" (which makes no sense because even if he were a secret muslim, everyone knows Obama was born in Kenya, and they aren't necessarily known for towel wearing). Of course pointing out the injured muslims makes no difference to the folks in the comment section, because to them all muslims are terrorists and it's good if they get hurt.

As we all know, Yahweh is awesome because if you believe in him, you don't have to be bothered with pesky stuff like facts and science, as this Facebook believer so aptly demonstrates.She says, "Fact- if the earth was 10 ft closer to the sun we would all burn up and if it was 10 ft further we would freeze to death... God is amazing!" (Note: Nothing in that quote is a fact) Someone responds, rather politely explaining how the Earth's orbit actually varies by quite a lot more than 10 feet on a regular basis. So the original poster thanks the guy for correcting her mistake, right? Not quite. Instead, she comes back with, "Okay thats cool and alll but dont ever comment on my status telling me that i am wrong everrrr again. I didnt ask you did i? Answer: NO" How dare someone try and correct her mistake! If she says god did something, then none of your liberal "scientific knowledge" and "facts" are needed, mister. Go back to your ivory tower!

I keep hearing right-wingers talk of anti-Christian bigotry that is rampant in America. If correcting statements that are just plain wrong is anti-Christian bigotry, then I can see where they're coming from.

And with that, I have a baby to feed. Good Night, reader.

Your Facts-Schmacts leader.