Okay, first of all, let me say that I don’t mean “strange” in any sort of way that reflects negatively on the persons involved, but only in the context of “not ordinary.” I was just flipping through the channels when I hit on something about Abigail and Brittany Hensel. They are now 17 years old and live in Minnesota and are the most extreme example of conjoined twins with partial development that is nearly symmetrical I have ever seen. They seem to do okay but… wow… what a strange and extreme example of variation, although this is probably due to development and not genetics. Here’s a video from youtube:

I posted the video bellow on YouTube a while back. It’s a clip from an old sketch comedy show The Upright Citizens Brigade. Obviously this is a joke. Science is not disproven and certainly not by spitty-slurpy. However, there were several comments on it that took it seriously. For example, creationists telling me that science is not wrong, just the theory of evolution is wrong and science is how we can understand the world created by God. Why are YouTube comments so consistently stupid? Dude, it’s a joke! Is that not obvious?

Is it just me or is the headline of this real news story just slightly misleadings:

Toxic Paint Makes Females Grow Penis!

(It’s less exciting than you might think)

I wonder if there was the intention to make this headline appear to imply what it does or if perhaps it was just a rather dumb error. Sometimes the funniest things are the ones which were not intended to be funny. Hope nobody feels too letdown by this one.

Always read the instructions and make sure to be safe when it comes to ventilation and such. But that’s for all paint and varnish and for both genders. Ladies, you don’t actually have to worry that painting something could lead to an unanticipated… change… in your life.

I’d like to point out something of an inconsistency in the pushing of the “Theory” of Intelligent Design in public education and those who oppose Evolution being taught in schools or insist that it is the best means of explaining the traits found in various organisms. This is not the only case of a strict literalist reading of the Bible not squaring with what is being taught in schools.

What about language education?

No, I’m not saying that the fundamentalist Christians should be offended that kids are offered language education, but what they are being taught of it. In my hight school, for example, the Spanish teacher would explain that some words sounded the same as English because it was derived from Latin and that many English words are Latin in origin. This is also why Spanish sometimes had things in common with French or Italian.

In English class, reading of older texts were explained to be somewhat different than standard English because of the “Evolution” of the language. Latin was mentioned on occasion as well as German, with the explanation being that English is a Germanic language.

But where is the other side? The Bible does not say that languages evolved from regional dialects or that there is interchange of words from language to language. Shouldn’t they demand “Tower of Babel Theory” education on language, grammar and literature?

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In case you have not been following this blog, it’s been focusing increasingly on nuclear energy. There are a couple reasons for this, including the fact that there’s no shortage of bad science in the area of nuclear energy opposition and even more in the field of “renewable” energy. But there are other reasons, particularly what nuclear energy and nuclear technology means for the mankind, the world and our future.

I recently had someone tell me that I should not be so pro-nuclear because it’s not “The be all end all” of energy. Actually: IT IS. Nuclear energy does not necessarily mean nuclear fission. That is what we do well right now, but there is also radio isotopic energy, which is currently used to power deep space probes. There’s nuclear fusion, which could be a viable energy source some time in the near future, and right now is well suited to providing neutrons for various applications. There is photofission and all sorts of other nuclear reactions that can potentially yield useful energy.

But what makes these the be all end all? The energy density of a nuclear reaction is, by comparison to chemical energy or any other means of storing and tapping energy, enormous to the point of being almost unfathomable. It is many thousands of times greater than any chemical energy source. With nuclear energy you are not tapping energy from the environment but actually making energy, turning mass of matter into energy. There can be no greater source of energy. Only antimatter offers a more complete transition of matter to energy than nuclear technology, and even antimatter is based on sub-atomic reactions, which require energy to produce.

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Gas prices were high and talk of global warming, better enviornmental policy and energy was everywhere. Oil companies looked to build a new image of transitioning to new “green” energy systems and the activism of numerous anti-nuclear groups focused on renewable energy. A major oil company made a stunning announcement that it would build the world’s largest solar energy system, working toward a future where renewable energy sources would become the foundation of our energy needs.

Solar technology had been growing by leaps and bounds and new methods of construction offered cheaper photovoltaic panels and more efficient systems. Government incentives and tax breaks could make solar energy much more affordable than it had previously been and many saw it as the clear energy source of the near future.

The year was 1980.

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Here in the United States, the health care system is… less than perfect. If you’re insured by your employer or by paying for private insurance, you’re pretty much fine. If you’re dirt poor, you’re covered by Medicaid or state health care plans, if you are applied for them. But for those who make too much to qualify for assistance but too little to pay out of pocket or afford health insurance, there’s a bit of a problem. Nobody dies in the streets in the US, but getting care at a hospital can leave a person in debt, with mountains of paperwork and in a maze of programs, expenses and lack of coverage. Some politicians think the answer to this is to simply socialize the health care system. Nothing could possibly scare me more than this.

What’s worse, while I have my problems with the republican party, the Democratic party seems to think that “universal healthcare” is the way to go, and they control the house and the congress. The problem with this is that for one thing, health care has gotten very very very expensive, and the US already spends more money on health and social programs than the military, NASA, education, research and homeland security programs combined! And right now, the health system in the US is pretty good, in terms of avaliable care. For example: The US has more MRI and CT scan machines per capita that any other country in the world! This could all change with “Universal health care” and to realize why we need only look north to the BOONDOGGLE that is the Canadian system.

Michael Moore’s recent documentary seems to indicate that the best thing the US could do is socialize the health care system. Christ…God I hope that doesn’t happen!

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It’s not really something new for the JREF to get sued by somebody who’s all pissy about being outed as a scammer or just a nutter, but a recent lawsuit takes things to a new level of wacky. The founder of ET Corn Gods has gotten rather upset with the foundation and with several members of the open forum. Apparently they have been less than receptive of his claims that he was visited by extra-terrestrials and that these alien beings imparted to him new and amazing information on how to decode messages hidden in the English language.

This hidden message is apparently put there by god, a god of corn, and can be revealed only by highly intelligent people. A free game is offered, but you have to qualify for Mensa to actually be able to decode the message of the corn from the aliens regarding god… Right… So it’s not too surprising that posting such ridiculous claims on a board of skeptics would not exactly get this guy the most warm reception. And despite the fact that the forum run by the JREF is open and only minimally controlled, this guy has filed one of the most ridiculous lawsuits since the one against Google!

You can read the whole thing here. However, Ill just include my favorite parts here:

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Homeopathy died a long long time ago as a serious method of treating the ill (that is if it ever was one, which is arguable) but in James Randi recently pointed out a great article from bad science.net.  You can find it here, and it’s a compelling, informative and well-written example of logic and science destroying the basis of homeopathic “medicine.”   But I am very very dubious that homeopathy will die any time soon.   It’s managed to stay profitable for some time, even though it’s completely nonsensical.

I really think that it exists only because so many people don’t actually know what the word means.   The first thing one generally thinks upon finding out the basis of homeopathy is “What?  Really?   Well that’s just plain stupid!”    And you’re right!  It is stupid!   Homeopathy is nonsensical, illogical and downright idiotic!   You don’t have to be a doctor or a chemist to look at the very basic premise of it (that things are effective when diluted and more effective when more diluted to the point of not a single molecule being present) to realize that the implications of this are just loony and completely absurd.

Generally homeopaths will try to defend their “treatments” with a lot of talk about quantum particles and energy fields and water memory.  These, of course, are complete diversions.   If you need to think about how homeopathy works, you’re thinking about it too hard.    There are many things in science which are counter-intuitive at first glance or which are not what you would expect:   Time being a non-constant, objects of different mass falling at the same acceleration, inward acceleration during circular motion, light being both a particle and a wave.   BUT:  Homeopathy is not one of these.   It seems stupid because it *is* stupid.   It’s absurd, laughable, counter-intuitive, illogical, ridiculous.

The answer to the question “How does homeopathy work” is the obvious one:  it doesn’t.   It never has and numerous studies have been done documenting this.  At best, it is a placebo.   That’s it.

Who was Max Headroom? It was a show about a computer generated character, which wasn’t even really computer generated. It was part of a very short-lived TV show in the 1980’s. But Max would be back in 1987, during one of the most infamous incidents of broadcast hijacking of all time. Someone, presumably in northwestern Chichago managed to overpower the microwave uplink of two different TV stations, first WGN and then WTTW. The WGN attempt only lasted about half a minute before engineers switched the frequency of their microwave link to the transmitter (located on the John Hancock Building). Not long after, WTTW’s feed was overpowered, but station engineers could not get to the transmitter controlled (located on the Sears Tower) and the stunt went on for a good two minutes.

The FCC launched an investigation but the culprit was never caught. It remains a mystery who may have been behind the stung as well as how he (or maybe she) got their hands on the high power microwave transmitter equipment needed to pull this one off. It happened 20 years ago on this very night!