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Skeptic Summary #180

Bad gas and good light, making the left twitch, lonely and wrong, many dead soldiers, media over matter, 24 extra hours and more!

Biofuels vs solar - Join in on this energetic debate.

Ralph Nader… - The controversy continues.

Used to be the Maytag Man - If there is one thing you learn from this thread, it’s don’t go to University College of London if you have any interest in biochemistry.

Editor’s Choice: Military deaths for twenty-six years - We do have some real numbers on this.

Media Matters for America - Media does matter. Here is a watchdog site that I’m sure many of you know about. For those of you who don’t, I have made it my pick for this week. It seems rather timely to me. From their About Us page:

Who We Are

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation — news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda — every day, in real time.

Using the website www.mediamatters.org as the principal vehicle for disseminating research and information, Media Matters posts rapid-response items as well as longer research and analytic reports documenting conservative misinformation throughout the media. Additionally, Media Matters works daily to notify activists, journalists, pundits, and the general public about instances of misinformation, providing them with the resources to rebut false claims and to take direct action against offending media institutions.

An extra day!

Sunday: Our chat host was busy recovering.

Wednesday: Chat started up with some forum talk. Then alternative energy and political correctness when it comes to sexist jokes. After that politics, science fiction, and animal intelligence ended things off.

Come chat with us.

Regal Archer
zausuaz
Klod
JeanJean
shaun2000

(Not a member? Become one today!)

Don’t laugh, sugar pills are the future

Government rules in favor of child whose parents claim vaccines caused her autism

National Consumer Protection Week, March 2-8, 2008

National Pig Day

What’s New by Bob Park

Got some skeptic news items? Send them to us, and we’ll think about adding them.

Your Inner Fish: a Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, by Neil Shubin.



“Fish paleontologist Shubin illuminates the subject of evolution with humor and clarity in this compelling look at how the human body evolved into its present state. Parsing the millennia-old genetic history of the human form is a natural project for Shubin, who chairs the department of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and was co-discoverer of Tiktaalik, a 375-million-year-old fossil fish whose flat skull and limbs, and finger, toe, ankle and wrist bones, provide a link between fish and the earliest land-dwelling creatures. Shubin moves smoothly through the anatomical spectrum, finding ancient precursors to human teeth in a 200-million-year-old fossil of the mouse-size part animal, part reptile tritheledont; he also notes cellular similarities between humans and sponges. Other fossils reveal the origins of our senses, from the eye to that wonderful Rube Goldberg contraption the ear. Shubin excels at explaining the science, making each discovery an adventure, whether it’s a Pennsylvania roadcut or a stony outcrop beset by polar bears and howling Arctic winds. I can imagine few things more beautiful or intellectually profound than finding the basis for our humanity… nestled inside some of the most humble creatures that ever lived, he writes, and curious readers are likely to agree.”

— Publisher’s Weekly

Forum Topics:

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2. What are your favorite words? (2,583 views)
3. Ralph Nader… (1,049 views)
4. LiLo (Behe) is back! (835 views)
5. Military deaths for twenty-six years (691 views)
6. Conservative Christian (673 views)
7. Super generator? Perpetual motion? Another grift? (558 views)
8. 9/11 was an inside job! (528 views)
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10. Muslim jihadists (486 views)

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2. Evolving a Venom or Two (1,346 views)
3. Skeptic Summary #152 (114 views)
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5. Miracle Thaw — The Bogus Miracle (67 views)
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8. Kent Hovind is a Big Phony! (37 views)
9. The Bible’s Bad Fruits (32 views)
10. TAM4 (31 views)

There were 11,267 daily visitors this week.

Forum Topics:

1. We’d invite Hitler to speak, says Columbia dean (21,668 views)
2. Hell, your final destination? (10,153 views)
3. LiLo (Behe) is back! (8,954 views)
4. What are your favorite words? (6,835 views)
5. Conservative Christian (1,918 views)
6. Super generator? Perpetual motion? Another grift? (1,718 views)
7. On Truth (1,341 views)
8. Ralph Nader… (1,049 views)
9. 9/11 was an inside job! (919 views)
10. Religion versus vaccines — sound familiar? (885 views)
11. Really creepy illusions (729 views)
12. Military deaths for twenty-six years (691 views)
13. Owl on the dollar bill… (680 views)
14. New features? (667 views)
15. W.A.D. of I.D. (665 views)
16. Stop laughing, dammit! This is serious shit! (661 views)
17. Jesus the evidence (661 views)
18. The Infidel Guy did not like my post… (588 views)
19. Beelzebufo ampinga (557 views)
20. Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West (526 views)

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1. Fundamentalists Hate Noah’s Ark (4,941 views)
2. Evolving a Venom or Two (4,528 views)
3. Mesmer, Casino Monkey, and Video Sex (604 views)
4. Skeptic Summary #152 (415 views)
5. Miracle Thaw — The Bogus Miracle (406 views)
6. The Bible’s Bad Fruits (190 views)
7. Miracle Thaw Tray (180 views)
8. Kent Hovind is a Big Phony! (174 views)
9. Cold Reading (172 views)
10. Evolution is a Lie (138 views)
11. Astrology (120 views)
12. Calorad (106 views)
13. Evolution, Scientology Style (105 views)
14. Evidence Cited as Hard Proof of the Existence of Satanic Cults (96 views)
15. Scientific Truth (93 views)
16. Darwinism: Sorcery in the Classroom (90 views)
17. Preaching that Anti-Evolution Propaganda (88 views)
18. TAM4 (85 views)
19. Is the Speed of Light Slowing Down? (84 views)
20. Skeptic Summary #179 (84 views)

There were 48,702 daily visitors in February.