Its that time of the season when we are searching for the finer things in life. Well, at least I find myself in the midst of that that age-old conundrum: what do I buy? As I did in the past you will find I present some ideas for your shopping lists. You can start at The Times for a Christmas Gift Guide, or The Guardian for Unique Christmas gift ideas: Luxury gifts for men, which is part of their Christmas gift [...]

From Primum Non Nocere
http://contusio-cordis.blogspot.com/2010/12/guide-to-christmas-shopping.html
12/16/2010 4:54:00 AM
Search rank: 474

When: Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:30pm to 9:30pm  UTC

Where: The Roebuck Inn 57 Stockbridge Road, Winchester, SO22 6RP http://www.roebuckwinchester.com/about_reobuck.php
Event Status: confirmed
Event Description: Skeptics in the Pub Winchester. For more information, see http://winchester.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/371/The-Pod-Delusion-Live--Winterval-Special SitP Ref [SitP371Event]

From Skeptics in the Pub, Winchester
http://www.google.com/calendar/event?eid=a21kbjJpcGg0aW81MGNzbjQ0ZTNqMDFzMzQgdDFyOWptbjBhcTJ1MnY1ZnBraDZmdWZsaW9AZw
10/3/2010 9:48:27 PM
Search rank: 376

NASA’s space probe Dawn is on its way to Vesta, scheduled to settle into orbit around the solar system’s second largest asteroid on July 16th, about a month from now. On June 1st, when Dawn was still 480,000 km (300,000 miles) away from Vesta, it captured a series of navigational images that have been put together into a short animation:

That is so cool. You can see features, still too small to see clearly, but they’re there. And you can see them move as Vesta rotates — the 20 frames of the animation are repeated five times, covering 30 minutes or about 1/12th of Vesta’s 5.34 hour rotation period. That dark spot near the center is possibly a crater 100 km (60 [...]

From Bad Astronomy
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/oG83TH9HLDE/
6/14/2011 1:29:34 AM
Search rank: 346

The solid Earth contains a huge quantity of carbon, far more than scientists estimate is present in the atmosphere or oceans. As an important part of the global carbon cycle, some of this carbon is slowly released from the rocks in the form of carbon dioxide, through vents at volcanoes and hot springs. Published reviews of the scientific literature by Moerner and Etiope (2002) and Kerrick (2001) report a minimum-maximum range of emission of 65 to 319 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Counter claims that volcanoes, especially submarine volcanoes, produce vastly greater amounts of CO2 than these estimates are not supported by any papers published by the scientists who study the subject.

The burning of fossil fuels results in the emission into the atmosphere of approximately [...]

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=335
1/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
Search rank: 341

James Gardner, son of the late Martin Gardner, has sent me a truly wonderful gift, one that I shall always treasure.  Forgive me if I’m a bit weepy at the moment, but this memento of my friend of many decades has affected me more than I thought it would.  Martin, for those few of you who might not know, was a columnist for Scientific American for many years, a mathematician, a genius, and author of some 70 books and countless articles, some of them on a subject he loved: conjuring.

I spent a lot of time over the long years I knew Martin visiting him and his wife Charlotte at their home in Hastings-on-Hudson, and every time I pulled into that driveway I had to wonder whether he’d chosen the house because of its address: 10 Euclid Avenue. I never asked…

Martin had hundred of [...]

From James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1578-a-wonderful-artifact.html
1/6/2012 7:32:15 AM
Search rank: 338

Beloved Readers, Skepdude will be taking a much needed vacation break through the beginning of  July.  As I will be spending time in an internet free beach in the Mediterranean (yes, such places still exist), and given that the World Cup will be happening, do not expect many entries from now, through the beginning of [...]

From VACCINE CENTRAL
http://vaccinecentral.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/vacation-break/
6/7/2010 9:32:20 PM
Search rank: 337

Other than Jon Huntsman, I’m hard-pressed to name a reasonable Republican. I’m sure they’re out there. I just don’t know where to look.

From For the Sake of Science
http://forthesakeofscience.com/2012/01/17/thought-of-the-day-371/
1/18/2012 3:38:50 PM
Search rank: 337

The recent spate of reported adverse reactions in children across the country to the latest combined flu vaccinations has, rightfully, caused concern amongst a number of parties. These include parents groups, government bodies and medical personnel. Dr. Rachie from the Australian Skeptics has been keeping track of what’s real and what’s not at her blog, [...]

From Gullibility Kills
http://gullibilitykills.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/australian-vaccination-update/
5/3/2010 2:35:38 PM
Search rank: 336

Over at Science and Religion Today (often a haven for Woo), John Forsyth is talking about anger. Some of it is good, and some of it we feel whitewashes things a bit too much and represents the conclusion that many are erronenously reaching from our post about tone. To begin, John makes a good distinction: “It [...]

From You're not helping
http://yourenothelping.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/john-forsyth-talks-about-anger-and-behavior/
4/20/2010 10:07:43 PM
Search rank: 335

I’m such a sucker for emission nebulae, the sites of intense star formation. Part of that is because I spent years researching other types of gaseous clouds, but also because they’re just so darn pretty, like this shot of NGC 371:

[Click to ennebulenate, or get the 2000 x 2000 pixel version).]

NGC 371 is in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to our Milky Way. That puts it at a distance of about 200,000 light years, or 2 quintillion (2,000,000,000,000,000,000) kilometers.

In this [...]

From Bad Astronomy
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/qyrOCUFPBaI/
3/31/2011 3:20:46 AM
Search rank: 333

So the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto holds a school safety forum, and the police send a jerk who tells them that if they don't want to get raped they should “Avoid dressing like sluts.”
Fuck that, and two students founded SlutWalk Toronto, held a demonstration and expected a couple hundred people to show up. They got over 3000.

From Uzza's Notes
http://uzzas.blogspot.com/2011/04/sluts-ftw_25.html
4/25/2011 10:36:00 PM
Search rank: 333

From Anything But Theist
http://anythingbuttheist.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-dudes-metric.html
1/24/2011 4:12:00 AM
Search rank: 332

The skeptic argument “it’s Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)” suggests that maybe the true cause of recent warming is the PDO. The PDO is a climate phenomenon that occurs primarily in the North Pacific Ocean.  The “oscillation” happens between warm phases (positive values) and cool phases (negative values) that last anywhere from 10 to 40 years.  The phases are associated with changes in sea surface temperatures (SST).  While the causes of the PDO are still unknown, the primary effects seem to be changes in northeast Pacific marine ecosystems and a changing jet stream path.

Important to note, however, is that the phases are not set in stone; there are frequently short sets of 1-5 warm years during a cool phase and vice-versa.  Secondly, the “warm” and “cool” phases are less descriptive than they would appear.  The cool period, for instance, is actually [...]

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=371
1/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
Search rank: 329

You have been warned...

See and download the full gallery on posterous

From XtalDave's Blog o'Science
http://xtaldave.posterous.com/extreme-closeups-of-my-face
1/1/2011 8:58:26 AM
Search rank: 329

Finally!

We’ve been working for a few years to get an atheist billboard up in the St. Louis area.

Here are the fruits of our labor(s)!

This afternoon, I got an email from the main organizer of the St. Louis Atheists meetup asking me to come to the site to be on the news with the billboard. Alas, I had to work! Darn, darn darn.

I should have skipped work.

Here’s the website for the COR. Enjoy!

read more

From The Skeptical Society of St. Louis aggregator
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ZizturcomFindingJoyInBeingWrong/~3/fNTrt3_o9Ys/atheist-billboard-in-st-louis.html
9/16/2010 10:22:28 AM
Search rank: 328

submitted by sisko2k5
[link] [comment]

From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/mpsf2/high_dose_vitamin_c_controversy_in_one_mans/
11/26/2011 9:46:05 PM
Search rank: 328

Every now and then, I emerge from my blogging dungeon (think Lion King "blinking step into the sun"). What tempted me out the front door today was Brisbane finally having a Rally for Climate Action. Sydney, Melbourne and Perth have had their fun - it was time for Brisvegas to strut our stuff and show our nation's leaders that we demand climate action. I was not the only one - an estimated 4000+ people crammed into King George Square in the heart of the city.


Click on the pic to see a larger version of this photo (I couldn't fit the entire crowd in one photo so this is my attempt to join two photos [...]

From Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=687
4/10/2011 9:10:30 AM
Search rank: 324

Anyone can go to IMDB for a movie review these days. Or, like me, you can read the little blurb on Netflix and make your decision that way. Usually I just want to know the basic premise of the movie, who’s in it, and who directed it. I don’t listen to the opinions of many people (famous, friend or family) when it comes to recommendations and the like because most people don’t know me very well. All they can tell me is what they thought of the movie for themselves, not for me. And I’m an Odd Duck, to be sure. I don’t like a lot of things that are raved about. And movies or things that [...]

From Heaving Dead Cats
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HeavingDeadCats/~3/4cJEfXyjUG0/
6/27/2010 4:37:57 PM
Search rank: 320

The Reality Check is a weekly podcast produced by Ottawa Skeptics.

Subscribing here for free with [...]

From The Reality Check - Podcast
http://www.ottawaskeptics.org/the-reality-check/62-episodes/371-the-reality-check-154
9/7/2011 3:00:00 PM
Search rank: 319

Today is indeed a momentous day in history. On this day, in 1927, the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) was discovered by Teh West. It, of course, had previously been known to all those people for tens of thousands of years who lived among, and eated them.

This is also Carl Sagan's birthday. He was born in 1934, which seems like billions of years ago.

Do you remember Cosmos, first broadcast in 1980? (I always think of it as a few years earlier, but it was [...]

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/tYgjKYlyPss/happy_giant_panda_day.php
11/10/2010 4:38:56 AM
Search rank: 319

Hey, I haven’t posted a fun pareidolia (patterns that look like faces or figures) news article in a while, and this is a good one: a man in Finland found this interesting image on his wall:

[Here's the Google translation into English.]

Of course, the article claims it looks like the Virgin Mary.

Now look: I know that the standard [...]

From Bad Astronomy
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/8FaKU1jR5v8/
8/13/2011 11:04:17 PM
Search rank: 315

like it? click it!
view in the dark

From toomanytribbles
http://toomanytribbles.blogspot.com/2011/10/three-pictures-of-vicky.html
10/24/2011 11:54:00 PM
Search rank: 315

From Uploads by TheSkepticsGuide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk2tnFsO4OU&feature=youtube_gdata
9/16/2011 8:50:30 AM
Search rank: 305

NO ATHEISTS IN [CHILEAN] MINES October 15, 2010

The miraculous rescue of all 33 Chilean miners is difficult to understand from a purely secular perspective. In this day and age of militant atheism, coupled with relentless assaults on Roman Catholicism, it is refreshing to read about the central role that Catholicism played in helping these courageous men survive, and of their enormous gratitude to God.

To those who cling to the superstition that there is no meaning to life beyond sheer material existence, we ask them to reflect on the following testimonials. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no atheists in trapped mines. Click here (link removed) for some inspiring comments.

From Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant
http://mikesweeklyskepticrant.blogspot.com/2010/10/once-again-catholic-league-can-blow-me.html
10/17/2010 10:01:00 AM
Search rank: 302

...guess what it sells? Correct - it's a sandwich shop...

From JREF Forum
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=206669&goto=newpost
4/19/2011 1:54:30 PM
Search rank: 298