QUEERS!
Let’s start with this brand-new gem. The pope’s representative at the UN says it’s not that their priests are pedophiles, it’s that homosexuals have infiltrated the priesthood. And gone after little boys. See the difference? Now let’s go get those homos! (Sorry. Obviously all the snark was not weeded out after all.) “Sex Abuse in Catholic Church was Homosexual Problem, not Pedophilia: Vatican” (alternate link)

The church is hot to make homosexuals out to be the spawn of Satan and simultaneously eager to find a way to cool off the heat from all the bad press from all the child-molesting in-house. What better way than to blame the former for the latter? Now we can all turn our pitchforks away from the pope and go after the gays, right? Forget about the clergy who shielded them from justice and ignored or silenced the victims. Let’s put aside that back in 2004 the Catholic League tried to soften the blow by saying ‘yeah, well teachers do it more than us, so nyeah!’? This new tact is sure to get more traction because, hey… people like teachers but hate homos, amiright!?!?

I’m not doing such a hot job with the whole snarky thing, am I…?

LIES!
But don’t worry. This is all on the up-and-up, surely. The church wouldn’t lie. Although… they might use “mental reservation”… You know, word a lie in such a way that technically it’s not a lie… per se. You see, the larger story is that there’s an on-going child abuse scandal involving the church in full burn right now in Ireland and the Irish Times just plastered the findings of a commission tasked to investigate it all over its pages. The commission found abuse, coverups and generally a lot of lies. And considering the number of priests involved, not to mention all those fingered since 2004, the Catholic League might need to revise their Priests vs Teachers data. But, wait! According to the commission, the church representatives could keep a clear conscience through mental gymnastics where they ‘lied without lying‘ using the technique called ‘mental reservation’. An example being well-illustrated by Cardinal Desmond Connell:

In Mr Madden’s case, Cardinal Connell emphasised he did not lie to the media about the use of diocesan funds for the compensation of clerical child sexual abuse victims.

He explained to Mr Madden he had told journalists “that diocesan funds ARE (report’s emphasis) not used for such a purpose; that he had not said that diocesan funds WERE not used for such a purpose. By using the present tense he had not excluded the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such purpose in the past. According to Mr Madden, Cardinal Connell considered that there was an enormous difference between the two.”

(source: Irish Times)

No wonder they’re looking for someone else to demonize. ‘Cuz they’re well and truly screwed if this is what passes for godly in their eyes.

So take heart, gays, when the pope tells you that you are going to Hell, he doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll stay there. OK, maybe he does. But perhaps you can turn this to your advantage? For instance, should an allegation arise just look the bishop square in the eye and say “I am not having sex with [men/women]!” I mean… unless you’re fornicating right there and then, this isn’t technically a lie. And if you’re in a foul mood, just say, “Look. I am not gay.” See? You’re not. You’re clearly… oh… melancholy at best.

BASTARDS!
OK, fine. Forget the ‘no snark’ idea. You see, I’m gay. And that pisses me right the fuck off. But setting aside my issues, what about the everyday people who look to the Vatican and its representatives to tell them for truth and guidance. How must they feel when the people tasked when leading them to purity of spirit before their god would rather cover their own asses than do the right thing. Is molesting children, harboring the molesters and then lying about it part of god’s divine plane???

So how dare these criminal-harboring bastards — men who are supposed to offer their followers comfort, safety and solace — create such deceitful ruses to harbor and protect their own even when it trumps the welfare of a the most innocent and vulnerable of all, a child? How dare they create an edifice whose very reason for existence is to allow them, grown fucking men, to lie? Wouldn’t the creation of that construct in-and-of-itself be a sin in their god’s eyes? I’m pretty sure, the answer is “amen”. Lying and hiding pederasts seems to me a bit more problematic than eating shellfish or coveting an ass, quite frankly. It’s time to stop letting each incident get by. I’m calling on the Catholic faithful to stand up and clean up their own house. No more excuses. This will only get worse.

But what do I know? I’m just a homo, right. Well when I lie, it’s with full awareness that I’m lying and I take responsibility for my action… I’m not hiding behind some childish made-up game of words. I know it’s wrong when I do it, while these supposedly pious men of the cloth have convinced themselves that they’re above it all.

So… who’s more pious? Me or Cardinal Desmond Connell? You can bet your ass it’s me.

Further reading on the current Irish scandal:
Inquiries into clerical abuse allegations
The Dublin commission: Background
Church used ‘don’t tell’ approach
How the archbishops dealt with allegations

Fortunately, such a special pleading has been shot down again. Not only would it cause traffic issues in the area, but it would cost a crapload of money. And it benefits no one but the cult. So if Scientology wants to close the road around Gold (aka Hemet aka Golden Era Productions), they need to come up with a plan to divert traffic that does not impact Riverside County… and pay for it.

You may recall recent incidents on the road where protestors were subject to citizen’s arrest by Gold Base security people. They were charged with trespassing - which is true, they were a handful of feet on to Scientology’s property; base guards were counting the inches until they could pounce and get rid of these annoyances - and video showed them being quite rough. I mention this not to debate who was in the wrong or who over-reacted, but to illustrate why they want to close off part of Gilman Springs Road. If the road were closed in this area they could:

• Turn off the speakers which blare the so-called ’spooky sound’ which serves the dual purpose of annoying any protestors and keeping the inmates in side from hearing what they’re saying, should they stray too close to the fence.
• Extend an outer perimeter fencing so that the cult members are even further away from protestors. And maybe they wouldn’t have to worry so much about the razor wire on the fence. Unless, of course, as some have posited, that’s more to keep the inmates inside than keep anyone out.
• Have a bit more time when someone goes ‘over the wall’ to reach them before they reach the freedom of the highway.
• But mostly, they could ignore the protestors who would now be relegated to standing somewhere near Highway 79, far from the base.

Luckily, the people and services who rely on the road have made clear their opposition to the very idea. And Gold Base has to continue to listen to the public’s dissent… and that damned annoying sound being pumped out by the cult to try to silence them.

Rumours have been surfacing that John Travolta is wrestling with the dichotomy of a faith that denies his son’s illness, stands behind the [non] treatment that may have contributed to the boy’s death and undoubtedly places blame with the father and son versus a reality that plainly says otherwise to all. Reports that he’s sleepless and driving alone around his private airport in the middle of the night have aroused a great sympathy for him and the pain he must be feeling. Myself included.

But even if he is conflicted and feels the urge to pull away from Scientology, Travolta very likely feels he has no choice but to remain in the organization. For, you see, like most cults Scientology immediately begins walling in its victims the moment they join; Separating them from the outside world and conspiring to keep them inside by any means necessary. They collect personal and deeply private confessions from their members almost from day one and store and protect them like a bank hoarding money. They guard these records with cunning and ferocity and, when needed to enforce discipline amongst their ranks, may dole out little bits in pricking threats or veiled warnings to errant members. For when a member of the Church of Scientology has thoughts of leaving or otherwise doing something the cult does not approve, they will soon be subtly (or not) be reminded of all the cult has stored against them… should they need it. And if they go to far… the cult will go further.

So everything the young John Travolta has confessed to during auditing — and mark my word it is a grueling and unending process of recorded confession that every member participates in from the day they join until the day they die or otherwise find their way free of the cult — has been recorded, stored, indexed and scrutinized by the upper echelons. And should the day come where they need to reign in Mr. Travolta, a devoted Scientologist since joining in 1975, all they need do is crack open his file and drop a couple of hints. They may not even need to do that as Travolta has no doubt turned this idea over in his own mind many times; there’s no way he could not have heard the rumours of this happening to others who left the cult.

And now, it seems, a grief-stricken father does disconsolate laps in a golf cart on the airstrip in front of his home late at night, wrestling with anguish and uncertainty.

So I’m asking you now to join me in a simple (even simplistic, I admit) but empathetic gesture. Send a message to John Travolta and his family that, no matter what Scientology may threaten, no matter what they say they’ll do to his career or his reputation. That you will stand up for him and, by lending no credence or judgment to whatever gossip, true or not it does not matter, they may use to try and keep him in their clutches… you will stand by him and his family and help them rise above and beyond the menace that is eating into their lives and grieving.

And should he decide to take that step, agree to step up to his defense on the Internet or around the water cooler. Make a point to attend any film he then goes on to appear in, whether you have interest in it or not. Show the cult of Scientology that fear is only a weapon when we allow it to be. And we can take that power from them any time we please. Let’s start here. And then maybe, just maybe, this grieving father can get a night’s sleep and find closure.

Simply cast your pledge of support at It’s OK, John (http://itsokjohn.com) and pass this along to others so that they might join the ranks. Please Tweet it or blog it or whatever. Just imagine if, by this simple act, you could allow this man and his family to have the courage to walk away from this controlling, self-serving influence and find closure for their grief.

Thanks,
Ella

WHAT IS NATURAL?
Aspirin is a pharmaceutical. You may not have to have a prescription for it, but it certainly isn’t something you yank from the ground and chew on for pain relief. Although it once was. What we know as aspirin now came about from people chewing on willow bark for the salicylic acid it contained; more or less of it depending on the plant itself and local conditions. But unlike that bark, the aspirin we buy down at the corner shop is not hit or miss. We know exactly how much acetylsalicylic acid is in it. Because that’s how pharmaceuticals work.

We extract the thing that is beneficial (or, if we can just make it from its ‘natural’ component compounds, all the better) and we carefully study its effect on whatever it is it’s meant to treat. From that we work out dosages that make it as safe and effective as possible. We get rid of the pure guessing game that handing someone a bundle of bark and saying, “Chew on this” carries with it.

CHEW ON THIS
History is rife with medicinal treatments found in the natural world. Some good, some questionable. Quinine, used to tackled deadly Malaria, came from another bark called Cinchona. The ‘natural’ Chinese remedy for colds and other ills made from Ephedra sinica got its kick from the ephedrine and pseudoephedrine it contained. You might recognize pseudoephedrine from many modern cold remedies. We just don’t have to boil a bunch of grass to get the benefit any longer, we use accurate dosing based on years of studying its effect. Which is good, since too much can kill you, and ‘a handful’ is far from adequate as a unit of measure. You all know where opium comes from, so I won’t belabor it. But it’s good example of good and bad, as well as a natural thing which led us to understand a whole family of drugs, opioids, which help people endure excruciating pain every day.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of tossing a cancer patient a cup of poppy seeds is not my idea of smart health care. Wait, how much is in a cup? See, what I mean? Yet we’re often bullied by proponents of all manner of armchair medicine to do just that with other drugs and supplements.

IT’S NOT SPARTA
This is pharmaceutics. We find something that helps and make it usable in a safe known form and dosage. It’s not evil. It’s not even sinister. If water is produced using condensation in a machine is it not still water? And if salicylic acid works pretty good, but acetylsalicylic acid works better, and we can simply create that in a lab, shouldn’t we? That it didn’t come from a wad of bark makes no difference in how it works. The drug is the same no matter how it got there.

And we are talking about drugs here. Something put into your body to alter, fix, enhance, improve, heal, etc. some aspect of your body. Just because it came from the supermarket and just because an alternative medicine practitioner recommended it doesn’t make St. John’s Wort any less a drug. And, once again, too much of it can also make you ill. Do not fall pray to the mistaken belief that ‘natural’ also means ‘totally safe’. The FDA has listed many so-called natural remedies which are in fact harmful. Just look at Liqiang 4. Touted as a wonderful, natural, ancient Chinese weight loss (among other claims) remedy, the FDA has found it necessary to warn consumers that… well… it can kill you.

WAIT A MINUTE…
If only we had a discipline which studied the effects of compounds and then sorted out what a safe dosage was and made that available to us… in, say… pills or elixirs…

Pharmaceutics. Non-evil. Non-unnatural.

Giving you a handful of bark is no guarantee for pain relief. And there’s certainly no guarantee that you’re not about to cause yourself further harm, rather than good. So-called ‘natural’ drugs are no good for you if you take too much or in conjunction with another contraindicated drug. And most often the person prescribing the remedy has been handed down this information like a recipe. You use this much because that’s how much it says to use. Now really, does that seem rational to you when you put your brain on the case?

Telling you to flush your body with juice for 6 days to somehow rid your body of ‘toxins’ (does anyone ever check to see if you actually have any of these toxins in you???), that sounds all well and good. And safe. I mean, it’s just juice, right? But did your practitioner measure your overall body pH? It’s rather important, that. And ‘just juice’ contains a lot of water and acids and sodium and other things which, in such large quantities, can dramatically alter your pH. Did they ask if you take any other medications or have heart problems? Are your protein levels sufficient to tide you over? In short, did they try to insure that you don’t damage yourself rather than help?

On a side note… Toxins indeed. We have a liver for that, thank you very much. And it’s really damned good at its job, too. No amount of juice is going to do the job of your natural liver. Take that, you charlatans. And if, by fate, your liver is damaged, an onslaught of juice through your gut is not going to be doing you any favours. Seriously.

DISTILLED DOWN
To live in the modern world we need to engage our brains. At all times. And they’re very well suited for just that! The promises of science are not out of the grasp of the general public. Science surrounds us. It’s a part of our world. You’re reading this right now on a machine whose sheer power was un-dreamed of by early computing pioneers. Gigaflops? Gigabytes? Terabytes? Heavens! So falling for old-world superstition is beneath you and your big brain. Pharmaceutics is exactly the sort of thing that naturally, pardon the pun, follows on from the discovery of real-world remedies. It’s not un-natural at all. The more we know about what we’re putting in our bodies, the better idea we have about what the outcome will be.

It’s a natural progression from figuring out what plants help certain ailments to figuring out what it is in the plant that did the work and distilling that part out for better use. We live longer and healthier than ever before . And we do so in a world which grows more and more inhospitable to us each day. Overpoulation, pollution, ozone holes… all of this would have killed us if we hadn’t used our brains to move past simply chewing on a piece of bark. The list of diseases that would have culled our populations by now is large. Instead, we use our brains to find out what it is in some bark that sometimes helps us, and we make it better, more available and more (or less) potent as needed. We discover methods for extending our lives, for keeping us healthy in a repeatable, describable way. We pass that knowledge and research along to others so they can live better too. And it’s science that gets us there, not superstition or ancient secrets or trying to make people fear medicine or selling snake oil on TV. Science.

After all, our predecessors, who lived an ‘all natural’ life and had access to all this ‘ancient wisdom’ as well, died a hell of a lot younger than we will. We have science and modern medicine on our side. They did not. And I, for one, am greatly appreciative of this.

Cross-posted at http://everydayskeptics.com

http://everydayskeptics.com/how-to-cultivate-a-miracle/

Vaccines don’t cause autism. This is not in dispute by science, only by people looking for simple answers to a question for which there are none. The most troublesome aspect of this sort of grasping at straws is that it’s easy to sympathize. Many of us can, if we’re honest, probably imagine ourselves fumbling for magic bullets or miracle cures if the child in question were our own. As a result, it’s hard sometimes to be brutally frank and say to someone, “You’re looking for someone to blame and there is no one. Stop. You’re just going to end up hurting someone or being hurt.”

* - MMR does not cause autism. There is no Thimerosal in vaccines any more (not that it ever caused autism either, it did not*). Vaccines don’t cause autism. Vaccines do not cause autism. Independent studies carried out all around the world have shown this to be the case.

* - Not vaccinating your children causes disease to thrive and spread. If your child contracts Rubella, it probably won’t kill them. But if they expose a pregnant mother to the disease… her unborn child could contract CRS as a result and die. And measles? There is no treatment for measles, only vaccination. Maybe around 1-in-5000 of children hospitalised due to a serious case of measles will die (from influenza or encephalitis, etc.), if those odds are OK with you… But for the rest of the world, a world we freely mix with, the World Health Organization labels measles as a top childhood killer that is easily and effectively countered simply by vaccination. Many in the wider world would steal the vaccine if they could to inoculate their children from this disease. They have the clarity of perspective on death. But here in the West, many have lost that perspective (ironically, due to things like vaccines which protect us from diseases which would otherwise conspire to thin our herd). Willfully ignorant, believing like a teenager, shielded from danger, that no true harm will befall them, they risk their childrens’ lives over their own foolishness.

Their concern seems to be ‘why is my child imperfect - who is to blame?’. And because the root cause of Autism is unknown, they feel free to place blame where there most likely is none to be found. It may sound callous to say, but it’s quite likely that many of these parents simply don’t want to believe that they could produce an imperfect child, the child they’d dreamed they’d have, and seek to blame someone else. Parents of children with Downs Syndrome have to confront this head on; recognize that their child has drawn an unlucky genetic hand. But without a clear cause for Austism, the ‘Mercury Militia’ feels free to blame anyone they want for their child’s condition. Even when the blame may lie with no one. It is well-established that autism has a strong genetic component (if not cause).

But most importantly!
And by choosing vaccines as their Fall Guy, they risk the health of everyone who comes into contact with their children and the children of those they influence. Sympathize if you must, but we cannot let these people bring harm to the greater population. Especially our children.

Vaccines work. They work because of something called ‘herd immunity’. But toss in enough misinformed willful denialists to the mix, and our cooperatively built and maintained immunity breaks down. And people will die. Period.

I just hope that, if it occurs, the outbreak is named ‘The Jenny McCarthy Outbreak’ (See: http://stopjenny.com) or ‘The Andrew Wakefield Outbreak’ so that we lay blame squarely with those who are most fervently and ignorantly hastening such an epidemic.

Read for yourself. The evidence is laid bare for you to see and assess for yourself. And so I ask that you demand just as rigorous presentation of evidence from those who believe otherwise. Not just gut feelings or pseudo-scientific buzzwords.
CDC - Austism Information Center
CDC - Mercury and Vaccines (Thimerosal)
NHS Immunisation Information site
NHS MMR Catch-Up
IOM report: Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism
PubMed - MMR-vaccine and regression in autism spectrum disorders: negative results presented from Japan.
PHLS-UK: Measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and the development of autism
AMA - relationship between thimerosal vaccines and autism (re: IOM report)
CSICOP Article by Dr. Steve Novella (2007)
Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism (2008)

* - Update - I just ran across this quote from the Justice Dept.’s Lynn Ricciardella in regards to the whole Thimerosal issue where she affirms to a federal court that the CDC and IM have said there is no link: Ricciardella put it quite succinctly when she said, “There is no scientific debate. The debate is over.”

As my host just pointed out on her Twitter, if you vote for Pailn we don’t expect to hear any whinging from you later about cuts in science spending or having ideology injected (further) into your research or teaching. You may think that neither party will serve truth as they should, and that’s almost certainly true, but it’s painfully clear which party is likely to attempt to castrate it in the name of religion and idol worship.

Palin - Young Earther
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/15/bess/print.html
http://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/sarah-palin-young-earth-creationist/
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/20/1441/15249/706/604403
http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2008/09/saradise-lost-chapter-sixten-palins.html

McCain - Friend of Creationism
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/12/mccain-creationism/
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/mccain_and_crea.html

After much thought, I feel the best reply is, “Shut up, you idiot, while you have the chance. If you talk any longer you may convince us that you’re retarded and not just stupid.”

This charming little logical fallacy is as annoying as it is persistent. But none of its spewers goes on to mention how we modeled climate change back in the 1970s. None of them bother to point out the lack of comprehensive computer models (tracking rain, but not clouds, for instance), weather satellites (SMS-1 wasn’t even launched until 1974), global networks and… well… fucking supercomputers! The ECMWF got their first Cray-1P in 1979, Wait… OK. My iMac just did as many operations in those few seconds as a Cray-1P could do in a day. Just imagine a room full of people doing this on paper or on computers with no more power than an iPhone.

But to really get this in perspective, let’s have Isaac Asimov say something pithy and wise in a couple of sentences that I couldn’t put down properly in a full page:

“… when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.” - Isaac Asimov - The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 14 No. 1, Fall 1989

So, in a nutshell, we may not be 100% accurate in our predictions about climate change (and I encourage you to look into the recent re-affirmations and newly joined supporters of the data), but we’re far less wrong than we were in the past.

Now, shut up, you idiots. Or I’ll stick you on an ice floe from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf and hope a swimming polar bear eats you as you pass by.

Jeff and I had corresponded briefly and I kept thinking that it would be awesome if we could get together and meet. I also entertained a fantasy of trying to rope him and couple other rational thinkers into a small network of bloggers so we could pool resources and cross-promote one another. Sadly, I waited too long.

I don’t believe in a mystical afterlife. But to the memory of Jeff I say, “I’ll miss you, as will many others.”

Ella

I won’t spoil the plot for you by telling you exactly what he did with his Jesus-flavoured cracker. You really need to read his post. Indeed, you should read it in full as there’s some very eye-opening history laid out there showing the vicious nature of the catholic church over the years in regards to the eucharist. Especially against Jews.

Have a read. Totally worth it.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_great_desecration.php

UPDATE: Oh, my! What a hoot! My favourite part is the true believers who, unable to wrap their head around the idea that someone else does not share their particular brand of hysteria, are hypothesizing that the image is faked! The idea that someone could actually not be in fear of their god is so completely unfathomable and alien to them that they then (much like the formation of religion itself) come up with a rationalization to explain this cognitive dissonance — they think the picture is photoshopped! The notion that photoshopping the picture would be more than simply spearing a wafer just doesn’t seem to concern them. They can conceive of a wafer being Jesus but can’t grasp the concept of Occam’s Razor?