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The Sporadic Chronicle
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14 Aug 2008
The Fair Education Foundation take their bibles very literally, even to the point of insisting that the Earth neither rotates nor moves around the sun. Pretty much anything which contradicts what people thought in the Bronze Age is, according to them, some kind of diabolical lie. Look on in amazement as everything from the fact of geosynchronous satellites, tides and stars' red shift to the Therories of Evolution and Relativity are attacked by the careful use of shouting and randomly coloured text.
09 July 2008
There's some high quality crankery over at serpo.org, the site dedicated to exposing the Hidden Truth™ "pertaining to a top secret exchange program of twelve US military personnel to Serpo, a planet of Zeta Reticuli, between the years 1965-78". Where else could you read the WORLDWIDE BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE that ancient astronauts crashlanded among the dinosaurs, or find someone willing to ask "Were Baby DINOSAURS Abducted by an ALIEN Race?"
09 July 2008
After 14 years of being without it, a highly infectious disease is now well and truly back in Britain thanks to Andrew Wakefield's shoddy research and years of scaremongering baseless press coverage about vaccines causing autism:
MEASLES ONCE AGAIN ENDEMIC IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
Fourteen years after the local transmission of measles was halted in the United Kingdom (UK), the disease has once again become endemic, according to the Health Protection Agency (HPA), the public health body of England and Wales. In an update on measles cases in its weekly bulletin last week, the agency stated that, as a result of almost a decade of low mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccination coverage across the UK, ‘the number of children susceptible to measles is now sufficient to support the continuous spread of measles’
Well done, Wakefield, Daily Mail et al, I hope you're feeling truly proud. <slow hand clap>
16 May 2008
Perhaps some more training needed:
Woman led into river by guide dog
16 May 2008
National Geographic has an extraordinary gallery of sea slug photographs, which are beautiful and weird in equal parts.

Sea slug, Halgerda batangas Sea slug, Jorunna funebris
18 April 2008
For your web browsing entertainment I've written some interactive wriggly caterpillars.
18 April 2008
YouTube cat goodness:
17 April 2008
Oh my god, William Shatner nearly died by crashing his motorbike sans helmet or protective clothing:
WILLIAM Shatner, Star Trek's James T Kirk has lumped his motorcycle while not wearing a helmet on a Californian highway.
The reckless former Star Trek star is famous for not bothering with leather or body armour and rides around the state wearing just beach clothes. But took a few scrapes after toppling off his Harley-Davidson. He said: "I think leather, and helmets and protective gear is foolish, in the hot California weather. I ride with sandals and shorts and a t-shirt.
Nooooooooo!
I was driving along and the bike slid from under me, and I skidded across the two lane highway.
"I grabbed the bike hauled it up and got back on. I had to get to Los Angeles. ... I got back on the bike and my clothes are shredded, then I realised I was bleeding."
You see - the man's a true talent. Despite it being a long time since Star Trek he's not lost the knack of rolling on the ground in a ripped shirt.
13 April 2008
Oh dear, homeopaths have been caught suggesting ineffective anti-malarial medicines again:
A shop in [Exeter's] Princesshay centre will come under the spotlight tonight when it is featured in an investigative TV programme.
BBC One's Inside Out South West has investigated claims by Neal's Yard that homeopathic remedies it sells in its stores can help prevent and treat serious fatal diseases such as malaria.
Neal's Yard do sell malaria remedies, which are so diluted they contain no active ingredient. As far as recommending homeopathic-only prophylaxis - instead of effective pharmaceutical prophylaxis - goes, they sell a book titled 'Homoeopathic Alternatives To Immunisation' which "contains practical information on preventing and treating major infectious diseases, including hepatitis, flu, malaria, measles and whooping cough" (my emphases) by Susan Curtis, who is a member of the Society of Homeopaths and works as the Medicines Director at Neal's Yard.
For the programme Janine Jansen also interviewed Susan Curtis, medicines director for Neal's Yard and author of the book Homeopathic Alternatives to Immunisation.
Ms Curtis called an abrupt halt to the interview after about 15 minutes, when being questioned about the scientific evidence that homeopathic remedies worked.
She said during the interview that: "I do say that there is no guarantee that the remedy will prevent malaria. There are no clinical trials that we know of that show that the homeopathic remedies work for malaria. However, there is some evidence by extension that homeopathy can be very effective in certain epidemic diseases."
Well I suppose just getting up and walking out of the interview is one way of dealing with criticism. I don't know what "evidence by extension" is supposed to be, so I've written to her to ask what she meant, as well as to ask her for her evidence of homeopathic effectiveness against epidemic diseases.

But perhaps this is just a blip or some kind of unfortunate misunderstanding - the Society of Homeopaths was quick to say after earlier cases of homeopaths giving bad anti-malarial advice that proper professional homeopaths - such as its members - wouldn't suggest anything as reckless as relying exclusively on homeopathy to protect against a fatal disease.

In an attempt to find what professional homeopaths - such as members of the SoH - do recommend against malaria I decided to see what they say about it in books they write. This way there is no possibility that someone accidentally says something they don't mean, or that an unfortunate turn of phrase might be tricked out of them during undercover filming. So on Saturday I went to my local library where I found two books written by fully-trained accredited professional homeopaths and aimed at a general public readership, which gave advice about malaria. Read on for the full story...
07 March 2008
A long-running attempt to launch a blasphemy prosecution over 'Jerry Springer the Opera' finally ground to an end this week:
The House of Lords has refused to hear a petition of appeal brought by a Christian activist group trying to prosecute the BBC for blasphemy [because] it did "not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance".
Having exhausted all available avenues of English Law, the complainants invoked the Wrath Of God. No, really, in the 21st century:
Christian Voice called the decision an "ignoble move".
"It brings down the judgement of God on us all," said Stephen Green, national director of the evangelical lobby group.
"I love my neighbour and I do not want that to happen."
So everyone be on the lookout for plagues of locusts. Mind you, if 'Jerry Springer' can move the gods to anger, I dread to think what they'll make of this:
The government has got its controversial plan to scrap the blasphemy law through the House of Lords.
Peers voted 148 to 87 in favour of the move last night - which was a government amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill.
The amendment will abolish the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales.
Never mind the locusts, take precautions for a rain of burning sulphur.
31 Jan 2008
worldslargestthings.com has a collection of links to some of the world's largest things. Like the world's largest ball of stamps.
31 Jan 2008
As a follow-up to the previous item it's now nearly a week ago that I took what was, by homeopathic standards, a massive dose of powerful medicine and I've also been taking 3 doses every day since then. Anthony was getting worried by my prolonged silence since announcing this rash course of action, but you can all breathe easily. As expected, I have noticed no effect whatsoever - not even prolonged throbbing, deep furrows on the forehead, fan like motion of nostrils or excessive accumulation of flatulence. Well what an anticlimax that challenge to witness the power of homeopathy turned out to be. But it was good: about a dozen denizens of the Bad Science forums, but sadly no homeopaths, turned up to the pub on Saturday and a good time was had by all. I swear I'll write this up properly, but I'm a bit busy at the moment.
25 Jan 2008
Over in a Quackometer discussion thread back in December, staunch homeopathy-defending commenter LouiseZ challenged homeopathic non-believers thus:
I challenge you to phone Ainsworths Homeopathic Pharmacy and order a Lycopodium 10M powder and tell me you don't feel ANYTHING at all after taking it!
Lest someone accuse Science of cowardice in the face of Magic I felt obliged to accept that challenge. So it is that at 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon I will collect a bottle of homeopathic lycopodium from Ainsworths in New Cavendish St and go to The Dover Castle pub just around the corner in Weymouth Mews. I will then take it in the presence of anyone who cares to be there. I've invited sceptics and homeopaths alike, but the homeopaths didn't seem keen. In fact it's been over a month since I wrote to the challenger 'LouiseZ' to ask her what effects she expected the homeopathic lycopodium to induce in me, and she's not uttered any reply. But my own background reading suggests hair loss, itching of the scalp, biliousness, flatulence, impotence, hair loss, headaches and the baffling-sounding "fan like motion of the nostrils", all of which sound fairly noticeable, would be predicted by homeopathic theory. I predict nothing will happen because there's nothing at all in the pills. I suppose we'll just have to see whether I "feel ANYTHING at all after taking it!"

The homeopaths over at the homeopathic forum were quick to point out that little if anything will happen to me. I agree nothing will happen, but while I think this is because the pills are inert they think it's because homeopathic medicines only work if they've been specifically prescribed according to the individual's personalised sensitivites. So I extend an open offer to any and all homeopaths: I am willing to take any dose they chose of any remedy they chose of any potency they chose. I am willing to travel to meet with one or more of them for whatever consultation and examination they feel is necessary to determine my "individualised sensitivity". They may confer with one another and use any method they chose to decide what remedy is likely to induce the clearest effect in me. I invite them to do their best to induce the clearest, strongest effect (which they should specify in advance without telling me). I, of course, expect that their pills and powders will do nothing whatsoever, and absolve them of all responsibility for any effects, but if I take the remedy and do exhibit the symptoms predicted this is a strong indicator that the remedy is something other than an inert placebo, and would be strong evidence to wave in the faces of sceptics such as me.
25 Jan 2008
In case you've been wondering what happens if you turn teddy bears inside out, the answer is that strange and terrible things happen. A probably adorable squeeky one turns into something resembling a hideous Cold War chemical warfare experiment, for example.
25 Jan 2008
In a follow up to Wednesday's item, the pages which struck-off doctor, shameless self-publicist and fraud Joseph Chikelue Obi doesn't want people to read have now appeared in over 30 places according to the list put together by shpalman. My prediction is that within a week the top 10 google results when searching for "Joseph Chikelue Obi" will be factual and unflattering instead of his own network of self-promotional sites. And all because he sent a bullying threat to the Quackometer's hosts instead of trying to rebut the criticism. The moral of the story: don't bite that duck!
23 Jan 2008
The little black duck who runs Quackometer is again being rewarded for his good work by pompous legal threats. Not from the homeopaths this time, but from a struck-off doctor turned straightforward rogue called Joseph Chikelue Obi. He doesn't like people pointing out that he's a fraudulent quack so he sent a snitty letter to Quackometer's web hosts, who displayed all the strength and resolve of a damp tissue and removed the pages. Of course, this guarantees exactly the opposite result from the one Obi intended, especially now that the big guns of the science-blogging world like Orac and Steven Novella have picked up and mirrored the articles. As have I: here and here. I like to do my bit, you know.
23 Jan 2008
Impressive oddness via an e-mail list I'm subscribed to:
What links the Giza Pyramids with 9/11, with the Comet NEAT, with the Mayan Calendar; with Revelation, the Grateful Dead and the New World Age?
I was just wondering that. Do go on:
The Twin, black-white Towers of blind certainty and belief, have fallen. And after the 9/11 storm, a rainbow synthesis of Beautiful Truth is now spreading on the Web. So, let's begin to Understand. Let's junk the myths. Let's start afresh. Let's slip the Fear Matrix. See Reality. Discover who we Really are. It's Beautiful.
I'm sure it is. Very very beautiful.
The Beautiful Truth Show - 22nd January, 2008. LISTEN
I'm doing so now. It's... illucid.
21 Jan 2008
A reader (I have a reader!) wrote to point out that I posted yesterday's posts with tomorrow's dates. The reason for that involves an intricate and elaborate combination of tachyon pulses, space-time wormholes, absentmindedness and calendar misreadings.
22 Jan 2008
Last week's thankfully harmless plane crash at Heathrow has sent holocaust-denying conspiracy theorist David Irving into a frenzy of wild speculation:
When will the commentators recall to the viewers that it is only two weeks since the same thing happened to a Qantas heavy, a 747-400, in the final approach to Bangkok?
Okay, so far so unremarkable: a roughly similar thing did happen recently to a Quantas 747 at Bangkok. But then Irving shows that flair which has made him such a... uniquely reputable historian:
Nobody mentions the Qantas incident, and I begin to wonder if they have been instructed not to -- whether a "D"-notice has been issued to the media on a very sensitive issue...
Oh really, nobody mentions it? That must be because of the government silencing them. Irving lurches off into wilder territory:
... did somebody, a suicide attacker, pull out a mobile phone on the 777 to check his messages? Or more deliberately: some kind of telephone-jamming device, designed to fry the internal wiring of these planes?
Mmmmm... no.
According to one expert, a woman professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was evidently an electro-magnetic pulse device being developed by the United States military which inadvertently brought down TWA 800 off Long Island on July 17, 1996.
And according to similar "experts", NASA faked the moon landings.
22 Jan 2008
Laugh, it's funny - an astrological publication is closing down due to unforeseen circumstances:
We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of 'The Astrological Magazine' will cease with the December 2007 issue.
(via the Bad Astronomer)
20 Jan 2008
2008 is going to be a big year for potatoes and potato enthusiasts, as it's been designated United Nations International Year of the Potato.
07 Jan 2008
Economic news:
The average UK person will this year have a greater income than their US counterpart for the first time since the 19th Century, figures suggest.
I can only hope that this return to the 19th Century will bring with it a resurgence in top hats, waistcoats and handlebar moustaches.
However, because goods and services are cheaper in the US, Americans will have stronger purchasing power...
But our prices will plummet once we staff our mills and factories with urchins who work for a penny a day!
07 Jan 2008
Laugh - it's funny, despite being wrong and bad:
Jeremy Clarkson has lost money after publishing his bank details in his newspaper column.
The Top Gear host revealed his account numbers after rubbishing the furore over the loss of 25 million people's personal details on two computer discs.
He wanted to prove the story was a fuss about nothing.
But Clarkson admitted he was "wrong" after he discovered a reader had used the details to create a £500 direct debit to the charity Diabetes UK.
Oops.
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