http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/pope-francis-good-atheists_n_3320757.html?ref=topbar
I hope the British learn from this….
]]>In the following page:
http://www.cficanada.ca/ontario/events/9_11_truth_debate_and_discussion/
it is claimed that 9/11 skeptics such as myself make “few attempts at public debate”. However, I have been trying to get someone with a science background to debate me with no success as all. All CFI groups I have contacted but one have completely ignored my proposal for scientific debate.
]]>Proposal #1: “Alternative Medicine” to “Experimental Medicine”
I think that lobbying to change the umbrella term “Alternative Medicine” to “Experimental Medicine” would have several positive effects:
1. Some Alternative Medicine practices have been under researched. Labeling them Experimental clearly defines their state.
2. Some Alternative Medicine practices have already been researched and proven ineffective. Labeling them Experimental gives immediate reason to end the practice, and will prevent future ineffective treatments from gaining ground.
3. The word “Experimental” carries a connotation of risk with the general public. People will ask more questions about procedures, effects and side effects, and weigh the risks for themselves. The public will be more skeptical of practitioners.
4. “Experimental” may encourage research.
Proposal #2: An exit strategy for Alternative practitioners
Practitioners of Alternative Medicine have made a living for themselves and have incentive to promote and continue their practice. Once their practice is proven ineffective, currently their only alternative is to abandon their business and start over at great expense. They need a way to transition to a new lifestyle, else they will fight us tooth and nail at every turn. Let’s give them a “bailout” option by subsidizing proper education in established, well researched and effective practices for some ailment. Clearly, it is completely infeasible to send someone to medical school to learn how to cure cancer, which is why I say “some ailment”. We can give them a list of reasonable options to choose from.
What ideas do you have?
How can we begin implementing something?
Just one more reason why we need universal coverage. Its just another example of insanity in the existing system. You may have serious gaps in your coverage depending on who you work for and you may not even know it.
]]>Conspiracy talk show host Alex Jones, increasingly a favorite of conservative media for his extremely vocal support of gun rights, outed himself Tuesday as a tornado truther by telling a caller on his show, “Of course there’s weather weapons stuff going on.”
Jones, a longtime proponent of the idea that the U.S. government can manipulate and even produce weather systems like tornadoes and hurricanes, went on to say that if people saw helicopters or small aircraft in the area, then “you better bet your bottom dollar they did this.”
“But, who knows if they did?” he asked. “You know, that’s the thing. We don’t know.”
As Max Rivlin-Nadler points out, conspiracy theorists who believe in “weather weapons” primarily focus their paranoid worries on HAARP—the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, not the Muse album of the same name (though Muse frontman Matt Bellamy has similar fixations). The program is “a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defense purposes.”
As HAARP draws funding from the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the folks what brought you the Internet!), it seems only logical to conclude that HAARP is actually being used to manipulate the weather and cause hurricanes—if by “logical to conclude” you mean, “left alone in a room filling with some sort of gas that makes your brain feel all wibbly-wobbly.”
Normally, you’d see people sort of decrying the toxic influence of Jones and his ilk, but in a counterintuitive way, I like to see Jones’ continued existence as evidence of the fact that a certain baseline of charity and prosperity still exists in America, that accommodates the notion that one can be a crazy conspiracy nutter as your job, in the same way a few people can make their living as “ghost hunters.” Had Jones been an original Jamestown colonist, his colleagues would have probably greeted his ravings with a genial, “Shut up and farm something, nutsauce, we are dying….”
]]>Dire outlook despite global warming ‘pause’: study
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-dire-outlook-global.html#ajTabs
]]>Pendulum Waves
You may recall from a physics course
that the period of a pendulum is proportional
to the square root of the length of the line
suspending the weight; i.e., the longer the
pendulum, the slower it swings.
Harvard students built a device with a series
of 15 pendulums in a row, each one slightly
longer than its neighbor, then set them in
motion and filmed the result.
The resulting patterns in this short video
are fascinating to watch..
Read the article to get an idea of what you’ll see in the video.
Man, I hope this comes to fruition. If it does, the potential benefits could outshine those of the Human Genome Mapping, the building of the Interstate Highway system, and the Lunar Landing combined.
]]>