So here’s a bit of good news in the morass of bad news coming out of the BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf. Turns out that BP did test Kevin Costner’s machine that separates oil from water and it appears to work:

BP says Kevin Costner’s water cleaning machine can ‘make a real difference’ . . . → Read More: Kevin Costner’s water cleaning machine works well enough for BP.

From Stupid Evil Bastard
http://stupidevilbastard.com/2010/06/kevin-costners-water-cleaning-machine-works-well-enough-for-bp/
6/26/2010 5:45:31 AM
Search rank: 691

http://www.greenandsave.com/green_news/green-business/bps-latest-oil-spill-cleanup-idea-hire-kevin-c...

From JREF Forum
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=177843&goto=newpost
6/10/2010 10:56:11 PM
Search rank: 555

WAIT! -Kevin Costner dances through fields of oil to save water world proving he's an untouchable bodyguard, for the earth!-

HA! More Kevin Costner movie references and bad puns that any other article I've read about this story. I should totally have a job writing headlines.


Kevin Costner seen here in..What? That's not Costner? HE WASN'T EVEN IN AVATAR? How can that be possible? Every story I've read about him today has mentioned his participation in [...]

From The Godless Geek Blog
http://godlessgeekblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/dances-with-nofield-of-damnwater-no-ahh.html
5/22/2010 3:09:00 AM
Search rank: 547

I previously wrote an entry about Kevin Costner
and his attempts to aid the clean up in the gulf and in that post I decided to make an avatar joke. Little did I know that a mere two weeks later James Cameron, seen above trying to look calm while being held captive by two escaped mental patients, would step up to offer his underwater expertise to aid in operations to stop the massive leak in the gulf.

Like Costner, 'Cameron's has decided to use his own resources to do what he can to improve the situation, rather than wasting time arguing over who's fault it is. If he truly can do anything to aid in the situation then Bp, the federal government, and all the rest of us should welcome his help. But like [...]

From The Godless Geek Blog
http://godlessgeekblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/oil-spill-and-james-cameron-insert.html
6/5/2010 7:16:00 AM
Search rank: 502

Rick Santorum may not be doing that well compared to Mitt Romney but it's the people who support him and his views that are scary.

---

...but might like to know in the wake of his Iowa surge.

Rick Santorum. Photograph: Getty Images
Rick Santorum, Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania senator, may be relatively unknown but he almost beat GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney in yesterday's Iowa caucus, trailing Romney by a mere eight votes. Let's be clear: Santorum won't be the Republican nominee come November. But he will now be the subject of countless media profiles, debates and discussions - as well as a bunch of vicious, attack ads [...]

From RichardDawkins.net - All Aggregated News Content
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644616-10-things-you-didn-t-know-about-rick-santorum
1/17/2012 11:05:17 AM
Search rank: 362

RIP Martin Gardner


Mark Edwards - Network Exploiting the Dead for Cash: ABC Has a Psychic on Staff

From skeptic cat
http://www.skepticcat.com/2010/05/todays-roundup-may-23-2010.html
5/23/2010 5:00:00 PM
Search rank: 326

While going through the backlog of things I’ve been meaning to cover, I found this three year old article about cyberneticist and Singularitarian Kevin Warwick, and how he plans to outsmart future artificial intelligences, vastly enhanced cyborgs, and other technological oddities which sound as if they were pulled from The Matrix or maybe an updated [...]

From weird things
http://worldofweirdthings.com/2011/04/02/how-to-disassemble-our-machine-overlords/
4/3/2011 2:42:51 AM
Search rank: 303

Kevin’s stepped on his dick one too many times. Rest assured, Julia will not repeat the same mistake. Kevin would butter Tony’s crumpets after mass. When Rudd looks in the mirror, he sees Abbott. On the other hand, Gillard is Abbott’s worst nightmare. Bring on the ranga! -weez

From mgk: Machine Gun Keyboard
http://machinegunkeyboard.com/?p=733
6/23/2010 9:46:01 PM
Search rank: 302

Plastic causes a trifecta of problems. We’re running out of places to dump our non-biodegradable plastic waste and it’s clogging up our oceans. Burning plastic releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere contributing to global warming. And to make the stuff, it soaks up 7% of our annual petroleum use, an in demand, diminishing resource.

Akinori Ito, the CEO of Blest, a Japanese company, has somewhat of a panacea. If plastic is just oil, why don’t we simply turn it back into what it was, he pondered. So the guy made a machine to do it. His solution is safe, eco-friendly and efficient.

From Musings of a Compassionate Eco-Atheist
http://ecoatheist.blogspot.com/2010/08/machine-that-turns-plastic-back-into.html
8/24/2010 11:20:00 AM
Search rank: 296

Here’s a whole post devoted to one link. We Didn’t Start the Fire It’s that good and that important to read. Big ups to Sunshine Coast Atheists for this well-researched and referenced bit. Dear Kevin Rudd- you don’t govern a nation of christians. To use an old ALP slogan, It’s Time… to get religion out of politics. You can start [...]

From mgk: Machine Gun Keyboard
http://machinegunkeyboard.com/?p=709
4/7/2010 6:24:09 AM
Search rank: 295

A Japanese company has created the smallest and safest plastic-to-oil conversion machine:

From Unreasonable Faith
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2010/08/22/plastic-to-oil/
8/23/2010 1:15:31 AM
Search rank: 294

Interview with Neal Adams; News Items: Space Shuttle Mission, Asteroid near miss, Psychedelic mushrooms, Kevin Barrett and 9/11 conspiracies; Your E-mails: More on supplements, Peak Oil?; Science or Fiction; Skeptical Puzzle

From The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=51
7/14/2006 11:00:00 PM
Search rank: 291

News Items: 5 Years of SGU, Zettabytes, Prayer and Critical Thinking, Oil Spill Conspiracy, Life on Mars - Not, How to Build a Time Machine, Man Claims 70 Years Without Food or Water; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Corrections, Croatian Girl Follow up; Science or Fiction

From The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=251
5/9/2010 2:00:00 AM
Search rank: 283

My telephone wants my attention;I can tell by the way that it yells.It announces these things by the way that it ringsIts annoying cacophonous bells.
My car wants to see the mechanic,And says so by flashing a light;I'm quite apprehensive--it's always expensiveWhen something goes wrong (and it might!).
My laptop computer, it hates me(And the feeling is mutual, jerk!)No warning light flashes, just 'click' and it crashesAnd vanishes all of my work.
When I don't understand their construction,And their actions are hard to [...]

From The Digital Cuttlefish
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2010/09/minds-of-machines.html
9/23/2010 10:50:00 PM
Search rank: 278

Links for you. Science:

Felisa Wolfe-Simon Does NOT Get It
And now, from the Insane Clown Posse wing of the climate change debate...
Cheap vaccine eradicates new cases of meningitis A
The Noble Priesthood and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves
The Government's Addiction Expert Says We Like What We Like Because We Like It
The "triumph" of New Age medicine? [...]

From Mike the Mad Biologist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/KsPC/~3/HD5JKUfO0Uk/links_61911.php
6/20/2011 1:29:58 PM
Search rank: 278

PLoS One has an interesting article The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact by Kevin D. Hall et al

Food waste contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and CO2 emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change. Here, we calculate the energy content of nationwide food waste from the difference between the US food supply and the food consumed by the population. The latter was estimated using a validated mathematical model of metabolism relating body weight to the amount of food eaten. We found that US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now [...]

From Pro-science
http://kriswager.blogspot.com/feeds/5807829332663215484/comments/default
11/29/2009 8:14:00 PM
Search rank: 275

Created page with "Solar costs are losing; even so, solar technology even now is more expensive than simply serving from the power power grid in many developed countries. But because of the plummet..."

New page

Solar costs are losing; even so, solar technology even now is more expensive than simply serving from the power power grid in many developed countries. But because of the plummeting price and low-energy utilization of LED lights, solar power is beginning to adopt keep in building locations, Kevin Bullis at Technology Evaluate reviews.

LED lights have been seen as being a long-term purchase: each and every light costs more up-front, but around decades their own electricity productivity will save you money. Nevertheless they require much less electricity than incandescent lights: just a couple watts of one's, as opposed to Something like 20 as well as 40. And this lower power requirement might be considerably more easily fulfilled [...]

From SkeptiCamp - Recent changes [en]
http://skepticamp.com/w/index.php?title=User_talk:BMilom&diff=3758&oldid=prev
3/7/2012 11:26:55 AM
Search rank: 273

At the Philly paper that did the write-up on Jon Gold. As usual, the comments section provides the most hilarity. David Chandler puts Jon Gold in the fringe section of the Troof Movement:

Every movement has its fringe elements. We are not a top-down organization. Some bring their expertise to the table. Others bring only their enthusiasm. It is shoddy journalism to poke fun at the fringes and ignore the solid core. (Jon ["f--k science"] Gold is not entirely on the fringe, but his comment that this is a balanced article is pretty far out there.)

Gold responds with something that I could have written, minus, of course, the profanity:

From Screw Loose Change
http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2011/08/comedy-continues.html
8/29/2011 3:29:00 AM
Search rank: 270

Cafe Skeptique (Centre for Inquiry ON)

There Will Be Blood is a 2007 drama film written, directed and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is loosely based on the Upton Sinclair novel Oil! (1927). It tells the story of a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano.

In 1902, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a mineral prospector, discovers oil and establishes a small drilling company. Following the death of one of his workers in an accident, Plainview adopts the man's orphaned son (his mother nowhere to be found). The boy, whom he names H. W. (Dillon Freasier), becomes his nominal business "partner".

Nine years later, Plainview is approached by [...]

From Events - Cafe Skeptique
http://www.meetup.com/cficafeskeptique/events/21241741/
6/7/2011 10:18:12 AM
Search rank: 269

Tiger sharks preying on birds disoriented by oil-rig lights, research suggests.

A tiger shark (foreground) swims near the surface in the Bahama Islands.
Photograph by Brian J. Skerry, National Geographic

What's a songbird doing in the belly of a tiger shark?

The predators are eating land birds affected by offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico (map), according to new research.

Marcus Drymon, of Dauphin Island Sea Lab, has been [...]

From RichardDawkins.net - All Aggregated News Content
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644580-sharks-eating-songbirds-in-gulf-of-mexico
1/14/2012 4:52:33 PM
Search rank: 266

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest system of reefs in the world. In fact, it is considered one of the seven wonders of the natural world*: unique, fragile and irreplaceable**.

In a strict no-go zone for certain kinds of ships, such as giant coal tankers, the fact that a ship managed to “take a shortcut”, get stranded and damaged, so that at any moment oil could leak out of its tanks, should be intensely embarrassing to our coast guard and navy. Admittedly, the reef encompasses some 344,400 square kilometres, which makes it difficult to survey and monitor. However, it is their job to protect our waters from any threat to Australia. A potential oil spill which would severely damage the Great Barrier Reef IS such a threat.

From Barrels of Monkey
http://barrelsofmonkey.blogspot.com/feeds/206699097090486549/comments/default
4/7/2010 11:51:00 AM
Search rank: 261

From a talk on March 4, 2012 at the CFI Meeting, "Moving Secularism Forward," Orlando.

I want to talk about a particular group of secularists -- scientists -- and their interaction with religion. Most scientists prefer to stay out of any conflicts with religion. They don't want to endanger their sources of research funding and generally just don't want to be bothered. They have better things to do, or at least they think they do.

I want to urge those of you who are not scientists to try to convince those who are to stop pussyfooting around with religion and confront the reality of what it is and always has been -- a blight on humanity that has hindered our progress for millennia and now threatens our very existence.

Scientists have to help the rest of the secular community to work toward reducing the influence of religion to the point where it has negligible effect on society. I don't believe this is impossible. Astrology and the reading of sheep [...]

From RichardDawkins.net - All Aggregated News Content
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/645288-the-fall-of-foolish-faith
3/14/2012 6:06:55 AM
Search rank: 258

I've been following Kevin Smith's career since just after Mallrats (when Chasing Amy was a thing to look forward to).  I, like probably most of you, are fans of (or at least familiar) with his work.  Smith has always been the champion of the geek community (back when geeks really were social outcasts), and of people not born with the fortunate genes for physical prowess.  He's the exemplar writer who has truly lived up to the lofty ideals of what a meritocracy should be: it's not supposed to matter how big, fast, strong, rich, or handsome you are, because if you're clever and civil enough, you can rise up and thrive. 

From Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic
http://www.somecanadianskeptic.com/2010/02/yet-another-reason-to-love-kevin-smith.html
2/16/2010 12:46:00 AM
Search rank: 256

Happy Valentine’s Day! What could be more romantic than enjoying some skeptical fails and wins?

Scott sent in this great piece by Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail, commenting on the damage done by the now discredited Wakefield paper.

Compare that article to this one in the Huffington Post, which claims that there is no evidence that vaccines are NOT connected to autism, and that is enough of a reason to keep researching. However, I do have to give some small credit to the author (who is also an MD), for deriding the Lancet for ever publishing the Wakefield study in the first place.

Nathan sent in

From Skeptic North
http://www.skepticnorth.com/feeds/6179956831419646024/comments/default
2/15/2010 4:42:00 AM
Search rank: 256

NOTE: Dr. Novella has written up a detailed description of his experiences on The Dr. Oz Show. Please read it.

When I first learned that Dr. Steve Novella, Yale neurologist, blogger, and host of the popular skeptical podcast the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe was going to be on The Dr. Oz Show, I was concerned. After all, this is the same physician who had in essence given up science-based medicine in favor of media stardom based on the promotion of alternative medicine. Of late Dr. Oz has been getting worse, too, promoting pseudoscience and what can only be described, in my opinion, as quackery. The snake oil that Dr. Oz has promoted over the last several months includes Dr. Joe Mercola, one of the biggest [...]

From Respectful Insolence
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/insolence/~3/WMSy9zF_BQw/steve_novella_on_the_dr_oz_show_dr_oz_ha.php
4/27/2011 3:37:00 PM
Search rank: 256