We're still here, just busy as hell.

Hey folks, just thought I'd put in a quick note to let everyone know that I'm still here and haven't been grabbed by the Men in Black and fed to a Bigfoot shortly before Melba Ketchum tests it for human DNA.  You know how you make plans, set aside time to work on various projects and spend time with the family and then life kicks you square in the ass?  That's been the way it's been for the past few weeks.  Hopefully the dust should be settling done pretty soon and writing can resume as usual.  Currently, I am trying to research the Sea Band product, which is an acupressure wristband that is supposed to help with nausea, especially in pregnant women.  (Makes me think of a scene in Xena, Warrior Princess where Xena and Gabrielle are on a ship and Xena shows Gabrielle a pressure point on her wrist to help her with her nausea, but the side effect is that you will eat anything.)  I am also researching a multi marketing company called Waiora.  Both of these are reader requests, and I will admit that they have taken me quite to get to them, and I apologize.  On top of trying to look into these topics, and trying to keep a look out for other interesting bits of news or Woo to write about, I am trying to get the Oklahoma Skeptics Society up and going and more active in the state as well as looking at building a website for the group as well.  I am also trying to do regular Skeptics in the Pub type meetings.   Keep checking in, and I promise that new posts are coming.  Once again, if you have anything that you want me to look into, or if you have any knowledge of the topics I'm currentlyresearching,  let me know.  You can leave a message on FaceBook on the Oklahoma Skeptics Society page, on Twitter @SkepticalOkie, or email me at skepticalokie@gmail.com, or post a comment here on the blog.  Thanks for sticking with me, and stay skeptical.

The Skeptical Okie

Politics as Usual, depressing. Religious Healing? Bullshit!

Hey guys, how has everyone been?  About normal in my neck of the woods.  (For those that are new to the blog, that roughly translates to hectic, chaotic, and unpredictable)  It looks like I might be going back to working animal control, or even possibly a state job in the environmental management area.  We'll see how it goes, though I still want to teach.  Got a few topics I was wanting to talk about a bit.  I know I said I would write about "The Family" or "The Fellowship", but I'm still researching them, and I keep hitting dead ends, and I don't want to rely solely on Wikipedia for documentation.  I'm also going to start doing at least a couple of semi-regular segments.  One idea I had was to borrow from George Hrab and discuss the most annoying religious or political stupidity during an as of yet unannounced time period.  Another one is "What's Skeptical Okie listening to now?"  I know it's not the best name, but it will suffice for now.  And now, on to the show!

One thing that really bothers me is when people put so damn much weight on the crap that falls out of celebrities cake-holes.  Remember Jennie McCarthy and all the good she did.  How many children were saved because of her well informed and publicly held views on the link between autism and childhood vaccinations?  I don't remember that happening either.  For those that live outside of the U.S., it's presidential season.  For us, it means hours of lip service debates, horrible t.v. ads, pundits accusing the other side of foul play, pundits blaming the other side for their candidates failures, people fighting over which candidate is the better liar, and hearing the candidates go on and on about how their opponents plans won't work, but theirs will because it has a donkey or an elephant behind it.  And on another tangent, why a donkey and elephant for political party mascots?  Because both are stubborn and will trample you if you get in their way?  Recently I heard on N.P.R. that Meatloaf, the singer, not the foodstuff, is supporting Romney for president.  Now I put together a short list of people of celebrated personage for everyone to compare and contrast.  I also put in what they are known for.

Romney                                                                 Obama
Mike Rowe-T.V. Dirty jobs (a personal favorite show)                                          Daniel Craig- 007, not an American
Gene Simmons-Music, frontman for KISS                                                              Russel Crowe- Actor, not American
Jenna Jameson-porn starlet                                                                                      Daniel Radcliffe-  Harry Potter, n.a.
Jeff Foxworthy-comedian (who I think got his ideas from my family)                Mark Hamill- Luke Skywalker
Trace Adkins- musician                                                                                          Richard Dean Anderson- McGuyver
Kid Rock- musician                                                                                                  Morgan Freeman- actor, voice of god
Jon Voight- actor, Angelina Jolies Dad                                                                  Angelina Jolie- actor
Ted Nugent- musician                                                                                               Brad Pitt- actor, hubby of Angelina
Chuck Norris-  actor, will kill you                                                                       Samuel L. Jackson- actor, total badass
Donald Trump- rich, bad hair, insane                                                                  Chevy Chase- actor
Clint Eastwood- actor, going senile, thinks a chair is president?                            Leonardo DiCaprio- actor

I love how the first three I listed for Obama aren't even American citizens, but no one else seems to have pointed it out.  Romney seems to attract the loud kinda crazy people while Obama seems to get the people with the calming voices that you would want to be the ones to announce the end of the world.  Also, I noticed that Romney has 1 porn star supporting him (insert your own mormon underwear/pornstar joke and submit it in the comments, best one gets 15 cool points) while Obama has 8, count them 8 pornstars including Ron Jeremy giving him a hand.  And speaking of porn stars, Jenna Jameson is quoted as saying "When you're rich, you want a republican in office" (Businessinsider.com)   Once again people, why the hell does anyone give these peoples choices more weight than say mine?  They memorize scripts or tunes.  Yes, some of them are very intelligent, and very thoughtful, but still.   Who out there is waiting for the Metallica contingent to speak up before they make their choice?  (And to those that are concerned with who the stars pick, Bill Nye and I believe Neil DeGrasse Tyson support Obama)  I say look at the candidates, find out where they stand on the issues that are important to you, and,  oh hell who am I kidding.  Vote Obama, Romney as president is already giving me nightmares.  To any Canadian readers:  If Mitt Romney wins, can we camp out at your place for a while?  I'll work for room and board, and I hear that you guys have decent medical care up there.  Thanks, A Rational American.

A second topic I want to bring up is Ann Coulter....I think I just threw up a little.  This goofy woman recently tweeted  "I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard."  This obviously refers to President Obama as having a mental deficiency.  She refuses to back down from the comment stating that for the past 30 years it has come to mean loser.  (What debate were you watching Coulter?  Or did you only watch the commercials and fill in the blanks yourself?)  And then along came this man

This paragon of virtue (and that comment was in no way derogatory, I honestly mean it.  This guy has brass balls the size of a Mac truck) is John Franklin Stephens, a 30 year old Special Olympian that has Downs Syndrome.  He wrote Coulter (and hell no, I'm not going to dignify her with the proper polite title of Ms.) an open letter, which you can find at http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/  , and I heartily recommend everyone of you read what this man has to say, and if possible, copy it and forward it on to Coulter until she recants her hateful term, even though the damage has already been done.  And if possible, tell Mr Stephens that it took a lot of courage for him to write to her the way he did, and that he does have peoples support.

Now on to some slightly .... I don't know how to describe this story.  Mostly because I do take a perverse pleasure when religious groups get in trouble, especially the really crazy ones, but I really don't like it when someone dies when they probably shouldn't have.  Not that I like it when some one dies when they should, but you know what I mean.  By crazy, can anyone guess this weeks religious flavor?  No. not Mormon, but close.  Not episcopalian, and you see me after class.  Yep the (damn I hope I don't get sued for this) scientologists.  Recently at the Narconon Arrowood facility, there have been at least three deaths, and at least one of them have no known cause.  Looking at the Narconon website, they claim a better than 70% success rate for treating addiction, using scientifically proven methods.  Of course, scientologist science is an entirely different flavor of science than what most people deal with everyday.  One of there methods includes high levels of niacin combined with up to 5 hours in a sauna.  This helps to flush the toxins out of your system, and prevents the withdrawl symptoms, which can be painful and sometimes lead to death.  As of right now, there are 3 suits against the Arrowhead facility for wrongful death, and failure to provide care.  This place is right here in Oklahoma, near Lake Eufala, up by Tulsa.  This folks is why religion and science don't mix.  If you do use religion and medicine, side effects may include: shortness of breath, inability to get medical help, failure to use logic, and death.  Please use responsibly.  I don't have a problem with someone praying for help, as long as they are actually getting help.  In the bible, god himself says that "He helps those that help themselves."  So if you're going to use a religious tome to help with your health issues, use it to hold the door open in the doctors office.

And now for the new segment "Whats Skeptical Okie Listening to?"  Or as my wife says, "What the hell is that?"  I am talking mainly about podcasts I try and listen to on a regular basis.  A new one I found is Cognitive Dissonance.  Tom and Cecil are the hosts, and this is mostly a back and forth banter type of show.  They do tend to deal more with atheist topics, but there is a lot of good skeptic quality there.   It honestly sounds like a couple of guys just talking about whatever pops into their heads.  Granted, they curse a lot, and there is a disclaimer at the beginning that basically says if you don't like bad language and sensitive topics talked about in a frank and open manner, don't listen.  2 thumbs up, just remember, not for the kiddos.  I still listen to the grandaddies of them all, The Skeptics Guide and the Geologic Podcast.  I have also begun listen to a couple of casts by Parrot or The Dumbass, depending on if you know him on the SGU message boards or not.  The first one is The Dumbasses guide to knowledge, and the second one is The invisible Sky Monster.  Both are pretty good, the guide being a general talk type and Invisible being an interview.  I also listen to Monstertalk and The Conspiracy Skeptic, both being interview shows, both definitely worth your time, depending on what your skeptical bent is.  And finally, there is Exposing Pseudoastronomy (man I hope I spelled that right)  which deals with astronomical conspiracies, or astronomically large misconceptions.  The newly minted Dr. Stuart Robbins does a very good job of breaking down the details and taking the conspiracy nutjobs arguments apart with scalpel like precision.  That and he tears Hoagland a new one.  I don't like Hoagland. 

Well, that's it for now guys.  I'll see everyone soon I hope. Until next time, be good, and have fun, especially on Halloween.  All good skeptics, humanists, secularists, and atheists should really enjoy this holiday.  Let me know what your costumes are going to be.  I'm going as Roland Deshain, from Steven Kings "The Dark Tower" series.  Youngish Roland, I've got too many fingers.  See you soon.

The Skeptical Okie

Quickie

Just a short note to let people know that I haven't died.  I'm just doing a bit of research for a couple of posts that I'm wanting to write.  That, and things have been totally hectic at work.  The kind of hectic that has you wondering if it was even worth going in that day.  Did have a couple of interesting thoughts pop into my head during the almost controlled chaos.  Why do you need to make an appointment to see a psychic?  Are athiests still bound by the "Act of God" clause that most insurance companies seem to have?  Let me know if you have any thoughts on these.  Thanks to those that are reading and hopefully I'll have a good article up soon.  For a hint, think "snap crackle ouch".

Raw milk and skepticism

Hello kiddos.  How has everyone been?  That's good to hear.  On the last entry I started talking about people in favor of consuming raw milk, and I will admit that I did not get too in depth on the topic.  Part of the reason for that is that when you put "raw milk benefits" in the Google machine, you get  1,880,000 entries.  Most of the come from websites with names like raw-milk.com, rawmilktruth, and rawmilkfacts.  Most of them spout a lot of the same concepts that I mentioned last time.  Or at least a lot of the ones I looked at.  I don't know anyone that has enough time to thouroughly go through that many sites.  It took me 10 seconds to find the down side of drinking raw milk, and granted it was mostly from the F.D.A. website, but you would figure that an organization that actually tests foods for safety might know what they are talking about.  The up side is when I put in "raw milk dangers" into Google, I got 2,720,000 hits.  And they come from sites with names like FDA.gov, and wikipedia.  It is one of the few times I've looked up basically what is a conspiracy theory and gotten more real research hits than pseudoscience hits.

And this brings me to my next point.  If you are curious about something you've seen or heard, or something just doesn't add up, I've got 2 words for you.... Snopes and Wikipedia.  Snopes is pretty good at debunking urban legends, myths and misconceptions, kinda like MythBusters, without the explosions and Adam Savage.  Wikipedia catches a lot of flak for being open-sourced and letting people edit content, but overall, their controls are pretty tight, and generally the information is reliable.  So if you need to research something pretty quick and don't want to wade through a ton of information, those 2 sites are my advise.  The other piece of advise I have is "Think for yourself people." Part of being skeptical is not just accepting what a bunch of talking heads are telling you, but to do your own research and come to an informed decision. Part of the reason that so many misconceptions still exist is that people don't want to find the info themselves.  They would rather trust "the #1 news team in (put your state here)"  than do some digging.  When it comes to science articles, you have to remember that most news organizations have either cut or eliminated their science writers.  The people that are smiling at you through the t.v. and telling you that eggs are good for you, wine will hurt you, and red meat will take years off your life, are just reading from a copy put in front of them.  Part of the reason for this is also ratings and bad releases of scientific research.  A lot of times, a lab or foundation will put out preliminary results from something that they are studying, such as the neutrinos moving faster than light, and they news outlets will run with it and end up blowing it completely out of proportion.  In the case of the neutrino research, they put the research out to have other groups help them figure out what they did wrong, or if they actually had found something that violates the theory of relativity.  When the problem was found, news groups made it sound like the scientists were incompetent saying that they hadn't checked to make sure everything was connected properly.  There are multiple articles all over the web, and frankly physics like this are hard enough to read, let alone have a lay-person like me try and explain them in a coherent manner.  What no one really focused on was the fact that they re-tested it several times and asked other to try an duplicate the experiment.  when no one could, they realized there was a mistake.  That is the great thing about the scientific method-when new information comes to light, a theory can be changed.

I could keep going, but I need to keep it relatively short, because I'm taking my son to the OKC Zoo tomorrow and  need to get things around.  I know I tend to bounce from topic to topic in these posts, but for those that are reading these, just stick with me.  I'll eventually either make a relevant point or actually become entertaining, kinda like a million monkeys with a million typewriters (does anyone still use those?) in a million years might write an Adam Sandler script.  Personally I think it would only take them about a week.  Until then, be polite, be friendly, but most of all, be yourself!

The Skeptical Okie

An introduction to the blog and The Skeptical Okie

Hello kiddos.   
     Nothing serious or too in depth today, especially seeing as this is blog post #1.  Hopefully I'll have a podcast up and going soon, and when that happens I'll let you know.  Mostly this blog will be the introduction to me, myself, and what I hope we can accomplish.  I live in a relatively rural part of Oklahoma, and for the longest time, I was the only skeptic/atheist that I knew.  Most of my friends and family are either southern baptist or Methodist.  I am in the process of starting a skeptical group in Oklahoma, and hopefully have at least a loose affiliation with the James Randi Educational Foundation and the Grassroots Skeptics.  Through this blog, I'll be talking about various logical fallacies that we may encounter everyday, and how best to argue against them.  Maybe debate would be a better word.  Argue just seems too argumentative.  Anyway, I'll also be mentioning and discussing any odd or interesting scientific research that grabs my attention for longer than 5 seconds.  If it's an article that says "Pork fat may cause obesity"  I probably won't mention it.  If it says "Pork fat may prevent cancer."  I'll probably talk about it, and evaluate it with a skeptical mind.  I know that there are lots of blogs out there that are going to be similar to this one, including the 4,296 new ones that have probably gone up while I was writing this one, but I hope to keep it a little unique and fresh by not getting too bogged down in a technical discussion and trying to keep it some what humorous.  I'll also have personal observations, and more than likely, a few meandering rants before returning to the topic.  Speaking of which, I went to the Science Museum Oklahoma (us old folks still call it the Omniplex) today with my wife and son.  Granted it was pouring outside, with a hell of a lightning show on top of it, and most of the people there may have originally been going to the OKC zoo next door (literally next door, they share parking spaces.) but the building was packed.  On previous trips, the place was pretty much empty.  You know when you walk into someones house and they get that surprised look on their face that says "What are you doing here?"  That's normally the look we would get from the employees.  Today however, it was packed!  Adults and kids running from exhibit to exhibit working buttons, reading the info cards, sometimes the parents were explaining the exhibit to their kids, sometimes the kids were doing the explaining.  For those that don't know, SMO (as they abbreviate Science Museum Oklahoma (and I don't usually like acronyms) is a very hands on type of museum, with most of the exhibits geared towards the youngish set.  Think 4 to about 15.  But it is still a lot of fun for adults too, and if you get a chance, check it out.  But anyway, the point is, I was ecstatic to see so many people at least appearing to be interested in what the SMO was about.  It gives me hope for the state.  Like I said, this is the first of probably many posts I'm going to do, I just figured to keep this one short and more or less to the point, not because I've run out of things to say, trust me, give me a topic and some time to research, and I can go on.  I'll try to put these out on Saturday or Sunday night, and if you like it, let me know.  Also, like I said, I'm working on starting a skeptical group , and yes I know that there is the Oklahoma Atheists and a group in Tulsa, but I'm doing this because 1) I prefer a broader mindset than just atheism, and 2) Tulsa is awful far to drive from here.  Not lazy, just I'd be spending more in gas than I do on the mortgage.  So, hope to hear from people soon, and remember, if it sounds too good to be true, a politician probably said it!