Denialism

Month: October 2007

  • Faith Healing Trips…Funded by an Insurance Company

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    Chris
    in

    John W. Miller reports in the Wall Street Journal about an unusual, insurance company funded program that brings many to Lourdes: In an unusual scheme, [VGZ] the Dutch company spends about $280,000 a year to fly 600 of its sickest and most disabled clients to Lourdes. The company doesn’t expect the Virgin Mary to intercede.…

  • It’s Time to Free Wireless Phones

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    Chris
    in

    All that stuff that the wireless industry says about being competitive is baloney! Cell phones in the US are big and stupid, and deliberately crippled to get you to pay extra for things that are natively supported in devices, like custom ringtones. And most Americans don’t know any better because they’ve never used the higher…

  • Telcos Pump Cash into Rockefeller’s Coffers

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    Chris
    in

    Over at Threat Level Ryan Single reports that all of a sudden, Senator Rockefeller, the putative custodian of legislation to give telecommunications companies immunity from privacy lawsuits, is getting lots of cash from such companies. And most of these donations come from out-of-state donors (Verizon and AT&T employees who do not live in West Virginia).…

  • Living the Bible, Literally

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    Chris
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    While Mark is in Begas, attempting to use his big brain to make money, you people are at my mercy!!1! Let us begin! Check out today’s Times for a book review of A. J. Jacob’s The Year of Living Biblically, One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, the story of…

  • Denialism in Vegas

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    MarkH
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    Today I’ll be leaving for Las Vegas until Sunday so I’ll leave it to my brother to post the next couple of days. Until then, have fun, and don’t let the cranks run wild in the comments.

  • Attacking consensus – a sure sign of a crank

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    MarkH
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    Sandy Szwarc continues to wage her war against the “obesity myth”, and has fallen into the classic crank trap of the attack on scientific consensus. It’s right up there with attacking peer-review as a sure sign you’re about to listen to someone’s anti-science propaganda. She cites this article at the financial times by John Kay…

  • Another monkey put in charge of the zoo

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    MarkH
    in , ,

    WaPo reports on the appointment of Susan Orr: The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who has been critical of contraception. Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy…

  • Quote Mining from the 9/11 Loons – NIST needs to learn to anticipate this crap

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    MarkH
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    Pat at Screw loose change brings us the latest dishonesty (or carefully reinforced self-delusion) from the 9/11 troofers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology released this letter (PDF) in response to the troofers, but failed to realize that the troofers will stoop to pretty pathetic lows to misrepresent what they say. I’ll present this…

  • Al Gore and the Attack of the Global Warming Cranks

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    MarkH
    in

    I’ve postponed writing about Gore/IPCC Nobel largely because I wanted to see how the denialists would respond, and it has been interesting. The problem is worsened by what Paul Krugman called Gore Derangement Syndrome: So if science says that we have a big problem that can’t be solved with tax cuts or bombs — well,…

  • Weirdest Headline Ever

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    Archbishop apologizes for giving Communion to Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence And what a great article too! PZ would love this group. On Oct. 7, Archbishop George Niederauer delivered the Eucharist to members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence – an activist group whose motto is “go forth and sin some more” – prompting cries of…