Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas! Hope you enjoy yourselves fully and stay safe!

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Sword of Truth novels scare me.

I am in the process of re-reading the Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind (They start with Wizards First Rule) and really, the books scare me. No they aren't horror, they are brilliant fantasy but wow. Goodkind is truly able to represent the nature of human mind, social psychology and the nature of faith in a stark and wonderful way. Any skeptic or atheist who reads these books will draw striking parallels to the world we live in today, not in any world context but in the rational of the wizards rules and the thinking that is behind the Imperial Order's insane beliefs. I have read the series many times and each time find something else that chills me to the bone. Frankly the things that people believe and the so called reasons for these beliefs scares me quite a bit. I don't usually advocate on here but seriously. Read these books.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Mercury fillings debate

Those of you who follow my examiner articles will know that I recently wrote about the safety of amalgam fillings. This article started off a firing of anti-amalgam comments and even hate mail. While I understand that people would be passionate about safety the lack of intelligence of these commentators astounds me. Each comment is a personal anecdote and is usually punctuated by ad hominem attacks one my intelligence. For example Marie Flowers said "this is one of the most ignorant articles I have ever read on amalgam fillings." All I did was present what the FDA and ADA said. I also used the wonderful article at Quackwatch to fill in about the other side. Said Marie Flowers also recommended mercurypoisoned.com, which is when I realized that she was not only against mercury fillings, but is an anti-vaccer. This load of crap is right up there with anything else that the anti-vac people come out with. For example on the website they have good old Alex Jones! From the wonderfully wacky prisonplanet.com. Whats Alex talking about today? Oh yeah, vaccines, flu shots, autism, and Alzheimer's. In the same video. BAH!