All of my Bird Book Reviews are Here, and some of the reviews include broader discussions that go beyond the book, so do browse through them.
Feeding Birds:
Should you even be feeding the birds to begin with?

Birders get annoyed at squirrels for obvious reasons. But you [...]

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/zajk_eQwQVc/looking_for_stuff_about_birds.php
2/13/2012 9:38:26 AM
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The Midwest Skeptics Society

THE EVENT IS AT CAC THEATRE.  GO HERE FOR CAC THEATRE ADDRESS (MAP) AT THE UNIVERSITY:
http://webs.wichita.e...

The Air Capitol Skeptics in Wichita are putting on a big show as well on May 21 - Rapture Day. Another GREAT line up of speakers.   
See this link:  http://www.raptureday...

From Skeptics upcoming events
http://www.meetup.com/skeptics-137/events/17549397/
5/5/2011 10:52:40 AM
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Charles Darwin's research and writing on Evolution and related topics is still very much alive today, modified and expanded on but only in a few details replaced. Here is a selection of writing about Darwin and his work to be found on this blog:

Darwin and his Formative Fieldwork

2008-02-13 Charles Darwin and Coral Reefs. Darwin's study of coral reefs was a defining project for him; he became the kind of scientist he was because of this study, and this helped define the nature of science itself.

2009-09-06 A conversation with David Dobbs about his book (

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/TfemfBzWRYM/charles_darwin_february_12_180.php
2/13/2012 3:42:44 AM
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This is a lion:

Click the picture for a larger version of the photograph. Photo by Greg Laden.

And here are selected blog posts about lions and related beasts:

• Amboseli Lions May Go Extinct

• From Greg Laden's Blog
  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/wwZFhZzCvCo/lions.php
  2/12/2012 8:07:42 AM
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Hello, My employer has recently moved to using .php and wants all web page links to be .php....

From JREF Forum
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=181355&goto=newpost
7/27/2010 7:03:23 PM
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Are you? If not, you can click here and be my Facebook friend. I don't need you to do that but it would be better if you did, just in case. It's good for you, it's good for me, really, you should do it. You need to do it. I don't really need it but maybe you do. You should, don't you think? Just click here.

Meanwhile,

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/DL9GYlkAsYs/are_you_my_facebook_friend.php
2/19/2011 1:24:31 AM
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• Christina Pikas is a zombie doing reference searches.
• Sharon Astyk is a zombie wondering about zombie infrastructure.
• Greg Laden has always been a zombie, but now he's a zombie with bugs on his brain.
• Grrlscientist has discovered that zombies like turtles.
• Vince LiCata has determined that university administrators are zombies. Come back when you have something new to report, Vince.
• The [...]

  From Pharyngula
  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/zGGi7L6Ivpk/zombie_sightings.php
  7/1/2010 11:54:20 PM
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Uh-oh. Seed Media has received some demands from Robert Lanza, MD, Scientist, Theoretician, Genius, Renegade Thinker. He wants us to take down a few posts by Orac and myself. I guess he doesn't like being compared to Grandpa Simpson, or seeing disagreement with his ideas about the afterlife, or being exposed as a quantum woo-meister.

Gosh, what will I do?

Seed has a very clearcut policy on our posts, and there [...]

From Pharyngula
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/xN4LR2fatKg/weve_angered_another_crackpot.php
8/5/2010 7:49:21 AM
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In April, we continued to look at the disaster in Japan, focusing entirely on the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Miller and I were criticized for not focusing on something other than Fukushima. It became apparent that TEPCO had ignored warnings that Fukushima was poorly cited with respect to tsunamis, and despite the assertion that the nuclear material at the site was 'contained' the amount of radioactive material in the nearby ocean was rising. Much of the debate of whether or not Fukushima was a problem (this debate would sputter out by the end of the month or early May) shifted to whether or not nuclear accidents were normal and expected, and attempts by nuclear power advocates to paint nuclear power as a victim of unreasonable demands started to become more common.

Here are a few of the key Fukushima related posts with the most comments:

• Japan nuke news 20: Tokyo Electric: [...]

  From Greg Laden's Blog
  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/EKQ1bzexULE/retrospective_what_we_talked_a_3.php
  1/4/2012 1:53:30 AM
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The WikiLeaks Iraq archive, while incomplete, reveals many more previously unreported violent deaths in the Iraq war -- Iraq Body Count say that the archive reveals 15,000 people shot, blown up, had the heads cut off or killed in some other way that they had not recorded. So Tim Blair, who claimed that the Iraq Body Count was way way too high (and predicted that the coalition would suffer "below 50" casualties) has posted a correction. Ha ha, just kidding. Blair has a post claiming that the WikiLeaks archive, which is, as I have already noted, incomplete, proves that the

From Deltoid
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/deltoid/~3/w_mAe_Iwh3s/lancet_post_number_200.php
10/26/2010 6:21:38 AM
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Once again, Chris Mooney has published an article castigating scientists for our supposedly poor communication skills. Since I've dealt with this before, I don't want to rehash old ground. But two good posts, one by ScienceBlogling Evil Monkey and

From Mike the Mad Biologist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/KsPC/~3/aCSSOV7zkEo/lack_of_power_not_communicatio.php
7/2/2010 1:16:00 AM
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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared over the last month at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine. 

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s muddled draft policy on “non-allopathic” medicine (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/cpsos-muddled-draft-policy-on-non-allopathic-medicine/ CPSO is working on an update of their policy on nonconventional medical therapies. The draft is disturbing for its wishy-washy approach to the scientific basis of medicine, its pro-CAM bias, and its manipulative use of language such as the derogatory term “allopathy.”

Testing a Chinese Herbal Flu Remedy (Harriet Hall)

From JREF Swift Blog
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1415-recently-at-science-based-medicine.html
9/10/2011 4:11:26 AM
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Hello can anyone help me here? Want to alter this code so that my sidebar doesn’t appear on any page other than the front page of my blog

From ...and your electron microscope!
http://andyourelectronmicroscope.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/php-help-again/
6/22/2011 6:29:07 AM
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Hello can anyone help me here? Want to alter this code so that my sidebar doesn’t appear on any page other than the front page of my blog

From ...and your electron microscope!
https://andyourelectronmicroscope.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/php-help-again/
6/22/2011 6:29:07 AM
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Before my stroke, I was doing PHP/CSS development on my home computer. That computer is no more....

From JREF Forum
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=222214&goto=newpost
10/21/2011 7:55:02 PM
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I noticed our company web site(not my work) was displaying a PHP error message. The cause of it...

From JREF Forum
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=230525&goto=newpost
2/17/2012 7:39:12 PM
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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine.  

Reassessing whether low energy electromagnetic fields can have clinically relevant biological effects (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/reassessing-whether-low-energy-electromagnetic-fields/

There is no known mechanism by which cell phone radiation could cause cancer. Pasche’s research on cancer treatment with “tumor-specific” AM frequencies might possibly elucidate such a mechanism. It seems highly implausible, but his methods are those of good [...]

From James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/1602-last-week-at-science-based-medicine.html
1/31/2012 1:00:00 AM
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http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/press_releases.php?release=64

Statistics: Posted by Watchdog — Tue May 31, 2011 12:49 pm

From NSW Police Corruption
http://www.nswpolicecrime.com/viewtopic.php?t=274&p=281#p281
1/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine,  a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine.

NIH Director Francis Collins doesn’t understand the problem with CAM (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/francis-collins-doesnt-get-cam/

From James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/1597-last-week-at-science-based-medicine.html
1/24/2012 1:00:00 AM
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If you are looking for some recipes, here are a few suggestions.

Theory and background

• Thinking Thanksgiving I
• Thinking Thanksgiving II
• Homemade Thanksgiving
• How to do a Godless Thanksgiving

Cooking Thanksgiving Turkey

• Brining the bird
• How to cook a turkey
• How to NOT cook a [...]

  From Greg Laden's Blog
  http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/_gMH3PKaQho/what_will_you_be_cooking_for_t.php
  11/24/2011 4:55:06 AM
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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine.  

The rebranding of CAM as “harnessing the power of placebo” (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-rebranding-of-cam/

Evidence shows that the majority of CAM treatments work no better than placebo. Advocates likeTed Kaptchuk fall back on the excuse that placebos are effective. Placebos are widely misunderstood: they do not produce some kind of powerful mind-body healing. New research has improved our understanding.  

Acupuncture, the Navy, and [...]

From James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/1590-last-week-at-science-based-medicine.html
1/17/2012 1:00:00 AM
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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last month at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine.

Shilling for traditional Chinese medicine: Nature leaves its readers a lump of coal before Christmas (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/shilling-for-traditional-chinese-medicine/ The respected journal Nature has sold out. It published a supplement on alternative medicine that was paid for by a Japanese supplement manufacturer and was essentially an advertorial for their point of view. It attempts to show that traditional Chinese medicine is evidence-based and cutting edge, but most of the articles are full of fallacies.

Inflammation: Both Friend and Foe (Harriet Hall)

From James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/1573-recently-at-science-based-medicine.html
1/2/2012 10:18:34 PM
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I've spent the last two days discussing the problems with value-added teacher evaluation, and I thought I would turn it over to the readers, since there has been some really good discussion. At the end, I'll revisit some statistical and methodological issues, but I want to address a good question raised by becca--and, in other posts about education, this question has been raised:

But do you really think it's easier to fix poverty than it is to get good teachers?

Two responses to that. First, it's not clear to me that teacher quality plays anything more than a minor role--and a transitory one at that (as I noted

From Mike the Mad Biologist
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/KsPC/~3/ha25XJiZYR4/why_fixing_teachers_is_as_unre.php
8/21/2010 1:03:16 AM
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While I'm busy in Saint Paul doing this, I think you should have a look at this and this, because summer is just around the corner. Later, I'll be working on a post for this because I do one every four weeks. How time flies. I've already done two of them (this and this).

Oh, I bought a bottle of air to disperse some of the dust while I'm doing this, and they wanted my ID! I had no idea that people snorted air.

Don't forget,

From Greg Laden's Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GregLadensBlog/~3/PfiqC8DjgoI/this_and_that.php
6/15/2011 6:29:24 AM
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Regular readers know that I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia, so much so that I even have a category devoted to it. For those not familiar with the concept, pareidolia is nothing more than seeing patterns in things. One of the [...]

From Respectful Insolence
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/insolence/~3/M42gc6xJcrs/jesus_sure_has_a_strange_way_of_looking.php
7/1/2011 6:00:00 PM
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