Obama answers H1N1 vaccine conspiracists

Obama receiving his novel H1N1 vaccination

Of course the real true believer conspiracists will still find some excuse to remain unconvinced that Obama isn’t part of the evil government eugenics plot to wipe out most of the population with poisonous vaccines that have managed to not kill or seriously harm anyone for months. If this is all we have, then they’ll say he didn’t really get the vaccine and this is just a photo opt. If there is video footage, they’ll say that wasn’t the vaccine with the poison or that it was a slight of hand trick that only appeared to penetrate the skin, etc, etc. It’s always something. But I’m glad to see Obama making a point to acknowledge his confidence in the vaccine program.

Jessica Simpson & Ear Candling

We all say stupid things sometimes, which hopefully happens when our friends aren’t around to endlessly mock us about later. But will the woman who exposed on national television that she didn’t know if Chicken of the Sea tuna was chicken or fish and who thought buffalo chicken WINGS were from buffalo ever learn to keep the stupid thoughts private?

Here is Jessica Simpson trying Ear Candling, an “alternative” “medical” treatment that’s supposed to clean out the wax in your ears, which in reality does no such thing but instead may burn you or clog your ear canal with hot wax, perforate your eardrum.

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News From Around The Blogosphere 12.20.09

1. Australian Catholic leader says cancer can be cured with prayer – According to the head of the Catholic Church in Australia, Cardinal Pell:

“Yes obviously (cancer can be cured by prayer),” Cardinal Pell told ABC Television on Monday.

“And there are quite a number of examples in the books.”

Cardinal Pell says that won’t give sick people a false sense of security because they realise cure by prayer is a “very long shot”.

So is “God” not all powerful or just usually a prick? Which is it? How about amputees? What’s “God’s” success rate at curing them?

2. Flying Spaghetti Monster or Cthulhu revealed in dining room table -

3. The Onion lists the top 10 stories of the last 4.5 billion years – The Onion proves to be the ultimate cure for end of the ubiquitous year/end of the decade lists. My favorite on the list is “Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World”:

Members of the earth’s earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

“I do not understand,” reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. “A booming voice is saying, ‘Let there be light,’ but there is already light. It is saying, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass,’ but I am already standing on grass.”

I’m also quite partial to these other two items on the list: “Woman Domesticated” and “Industrial Revolution Provides Millions Of Out-Of-Work-Children With Jobs.”

4. Solstice display goes up in Raleigh, North Carolina – The Triangle Freethought Society put up the display in Moore Square near a nativity scene. The display tells the real reason for the season.

Happy Solstice everyone!

It’s a great, big universe!

This is an awesome video by the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, and was directed by data visualization expert Carter Emmart. There’s is a lot more information available online about it, including background about the production.

But Phil Plait let me know about another feature:

But perhaps the coolest thing is that you can download their atlas — which has stars, galaxies, nebulae, everything — and use it to create your own fly-through of the Universe!

The software is not all that simple, but it can be used to create all sorts of tours of space. If you download it and make some, then post links to what you’ve done in the comments!

The anti-vaccine movement’s newest hero

My break away from covering anti-vaxxer news stories was going so well. But I guess it couldn’t last forever. Ugh!

The following is a video from a teenager, Robert Wanek, who was allegedly physically assaulted by a school administrator after he tried distributing anti-vaccine propaganda:

Orac goes into greater detail on this story here.

So far I’ve only got one side of the story, so who knows what really happened? Of course it doesn’t really matter because J.B. Handley is this kid’s biggest fan. If the student was genuinely assaulted, then obviously that behavior by a school administrator is completely unacceptable and they should be disciplined and face possible firing. But while that should be the story, it’s not as far as Age of Autism is concerned. To them, this is just further proof that vaccines are poisonous somehow and another chance to exploit someone in order to promote their own media whoredom. You can already tell Handley’s got folk hero aspirations for this kid.

What this story has to do with autism, the topic we’re led to believe Age of “Autism” is supposed to focus on is beyond me, especially since every one of the sentences printed on the sheet of paper the kid is trying to distribute is demonstrably wrong. Apparently, this kid thinks Google University is a substitute for a REAL science education. The kid lives in Minnesota, so maybe PZ Myers can set him straight. And yes, any time I hear about something happening anywhere in Minnesota, PZ Myers is my solution. How big of a state could it be?

Check out the entire film ‘The Master Plan’ online

I’ve only watched part of this film so far. Some of it comes off a little cheesy and the acting is better in some sections than in others. But it seems to be a fairly interesting film about a teenage girl’s struggle with evangelical Christianity.

You can also download it to view on your iPod, iPhone or iPod Touch, PSP and Zune.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Zombies

Adding zombies to old classics isn’t new. Someone’s already done “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” Now someone’s adding zombies to the Bible:

Though the Bible is an ancient book, full of beautiful prose, timeless stories, and great truths, there has long been a barely spoken of dissatisfaction over the one element it sorely lacks: zombies. At Zombible, we hope to remedy the situation by carefully inserting lovingly crafted zombie-oriented text into the Bible, for the enjoyment and enlightenment of all.In our first work — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Zombies — we ask the question, “How might the Gospels have been different if Jesus had come to Earth not to save mankind from sin, but from zombies?” (Be forwarned — it’s sort of a “work in progress” at the moment, so there are some nasty typos and bugs that we’re still working out.)

Isn’t Jesus already a zombie in the unaltered version?

Monkey see, monkey screw

Thanks to PZ Myers for posting this. It totally made my day.

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News From Around The Blogosphere 12.18.09

1. Illinois baseball team makes baby Jesus cry – An Illinois baseball team called the Joliet Jackhammers put up a deliberately amusing sign that seems to mock the sanctimonious invocations of “God” by athletes. Not surprisingly, this offended the fragile Christians who are just so darned persecuted. If only they had some all-powerful, supreme being that was looking out for them. If only.  This gave me an idea for a joke. What can’t tell the difference between the number one and the number three, feels it needs to fight an omnipotent god’s battles for it, and goes “Wah! Wah! Wah!” all the time? Christians.

2. Gov. Jan Brewer saves Arizona from. . .something. I’m not really clear from what – Brewer made an executive order saying that following the First Amendment to the Constitution by providing people the freedom to celebrate their religious holidays.

She similarly barred those agencies from stopping state employees from wishing others either “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Hanukkah.”

That’s a great idea. Someone should think about making that some kind of Constitutional Amendment or something. Checkmate non-existent atheists trying to stop people from saying “Merry Christmas”!

3. New South Portland, Maine mayor asks secular humanist to deliver invocation - Well I don’t really understand what the point of an invocation is if aren’t trying to, you know, invoke something, but whatever floats your boat. Mayor Tom Coward chose a college senior named Andrew Lovley who founded the Southern Maine Association of Secular Humanists (SMASH) on his campus to perform the ceremony. Gotta love those names.

4. Screw over your neighbors and win a free trip to Hooters – That’s apparently the latest evil plot by health insurance companies to provent doctors from saving more lives. A new campaign by Chamber of Commerce is actually trying to bribe people into signing up for emails that tell them “how to protect your family’s future and bring common sense solutions to the health-care debate” by offering them free gift cards to Hooters. And by “common sense solutions” they of course mean just continue to let 20,000 uninsured Americans die each year.

5. Ohio school removes ‘belief in God’ from mission statement – Actually, I think that’s more of a demand than a statement. But anyway, they did it to avoid a lawsuit from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The Lake Local school board near Canton has voted to delete the reference to belief in God. A final vote is planned next month.

Does anyone else suspect that the real hero of Canton is the man they call Jayne?

Scientists crack ‘entire genetic code’ of cancer

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