News From Around The Blogosphere 6.23.11

1. Introducing the solar-kini – A designer has created a bikini with embedded solar panels that can charge your mobile technology while your sunbathe.

2. Granite State skeptics hand out psychic bingo cards to John Edward’s audience –

The cards had a five-by-five grid of vague “hot words” and scenarios that often come up in cold reading, a term used to describe how it’s possible to elicit information from people without their knowing it.

Mentalist Mark Edward also weighed in on this story here.

3. Hundreds of Mormon ads appear in NYC – Maybe this is just a really elaborate campaign to promote the Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon, but something tells me not a single one of these ads mentions the Mormon home planet of Kolob. Maybe if Mormons were a little more honest about their beliefs and practices, more would trust them more and they wouldn’t need the improve their image. And if you’re embarrassed by your own beliefs, maybe you should change your beliefs. Just a thought.

4. Self-help guru James Arthur Ray convicted in sweat lodge deaths – He was found guilty of negligent homicide in the deaths of three of his followers during a botched sweat lodge ceremony.

5. More proof that reality TV is not real – I’ve worked in reality TV, so I don’t need convincing. But for those who aren’t convinced yet, the opening to “MasterChef” featuring a crowd of allegedly thousands of applicants has been exposed as a clumsy Photoshop job that just pastes the same groups of people multiple times.

Related articles

• Sweat Lodge Guru’s Homicide Verdict (thedailybeast.com)
• Self-Help Author Convicted in Sweat Lodge Deaths (newser.com)
• Where In The Universe Is Kolob? (savoringscripture.wordpress.com)
• Mormons try to brush up image while in spotlight (cbsnews.com)

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.21.08

The British Humanist Association, with the support of Richard Dawkins, has raised nearly £30,000 to place atheist posters on the side of buses – I have to agree with Skepchick tkingdoll and say it’s a great idea but a poor slogan: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life.”

Further proof that Brigham Young University is a crappy school – BYU has yanked the diploma of a man who created a calendar featuring shirtless Mormon missionaries and was later excommunicated from the church.

Mocking Noah’s Ark – Answers in Genesis isn’t laughing, but the rest of us are.

AMERICAN BIGOTRY:

Keith Olbermann goes off on crazy Minnesota congressman

But wait! There’s more! – A good Christian homeschooling mom who sees the notion of a “gay-friendly” school being blown up by radical terrorists as justice:

A friend recently sent me this article about a “gay-friendly” high school. If we were living in a biblical society, homosexuality would be punishable by death so such a school would be unnecessary. Although I’m against the special accommodations, perhaps this new trend of segregation will protect straight kids from these predators. With any luck, some radical will blow up the gay school. No, I’m not condoning vigilantism–I’m merely saying that it would be poetic justice.

Yet another reason why if heaven exists, I wouldn’t like the company.

And a bulletproof case for Obama being a Socialist Muslim.

Abortion divides Catholic voters – Some won’t vote for a candidate who is pro-choose and others have at least some measure of priorities. And here is another story related to the Catholic vote.

But at least Obama has the much coveted celebrity vote:

Revenge of the clones – “What happens when a group of streptococci stick to cells in your throat and start to make toxins? Your body fights back by making clones.”

Good news for solar power –

Researchers have made a new material that promises to greatly increase the efficiency of solar cells. It works by collecting photons over a wider spectrum of wavelengths and by using both fluorescence and phosphorescence to create an electron flow, allowing it to both collect more energy per unit area and facilitating the production of current.

MacGyvering a medical centrifuge – ” Harvard University chemists have built a centrifuge with some plastic tubing, tape, and an egg beater. It can separate plasma from blood cells, and could help doctors in remote villages perform simple lab tests.”

ANTI-VACCINE NEWS:

Should Every Child By Two try to get on Oprah’s show? – I was initially in favor of it but Orac has made some good points, so I’m currently undecided on the issue.

Antivaccinationist wacko Kim Stagliano to join fellow cohorts David Kirby, RFK, Jr., and Deirdre Imus at the Huffington Post – I believe the Huffington Post’s slogan I believe is: “All the bullshit we can legally print.”

Antivaccinationist Gary Null demanding that vaccines be 100% safe! – What a freakin’ jackass! That is a False Continuum and very the height of denialism: well it isn’t 100% safe, so it’s like it’s 0% safe and I don’t want it. Seriously, this guy sounds so over the top you’d almost swear this were satire.

Phil Plait goes off on Jenny McCarthy – Wow! Phil rarely covers the antivaccine movement in his blogs but that’s 2 days in a row. Awesome!

CareerBuilder.com promoting astrology

Puncturing the Acupuncture Myth