Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainThe relative success of Trutherism has peaked and is now on the decline. Its genesis lies in right-wing populist conspiracism that was repackaged post-9/11 to appeal to left-of-centre consumers who felt traumatised and disenfranchised as a result of GOP dominance of US politics to 2006. An explanation of 9/11 as a plot masterminded by Bush or his associates appealed to some on the left, as another example of the illegitimacy of the Bush Administration and an example of their evil.
One of the greatest blows to the Troof Movement was when the Democratic Party took Congress in the 2006 Mid-terms. It destroyed the notion of "BushCo" as an all-powerful clique that controlled space-time, controlled all media, and could steal any elections it wanted. As Katrina, Iraq, and Afghanistan have unfolded, the capability of the Bush Administration to orchestrate the greatest deception of all time has been severely dented.
Since 2006, Trooferism is returning to the right-wing populism from which it was originally-derived. Trooferism's love affair with Ron Paul(1) is rather indicative of this, as well as Trooferism's bolder assertions that the Democratic Party was also "in on it". On the progressive messageboard DemocraticUnderground, resident Troofers are becoming bolder in smearing leading Democrats such as Bill Clinton and John Kerry.read more »
Here's the past week's (give or take a few days) crop of blog carnivals (in no particular order)...
Here's some quality blog carnivals for your Sunday reading pleasure.
Carnival of the Godless #68 can be found at The Uncredible Hallq
The 63rd meeting of The Skeptics' Circle took place at Relatively Science
Carnival of Space #8 took off from Universe Today
A brief note to blog carnival organizers too... It makes your carnivals much easier to find if you update your blogcarnival.com listings. They have feeds set up for each carnival so when you update blogcarnival.com, those of us who subscribe to the feeds for our favorite carnivals find out about them much quicker. That means more incoming links and wider exposure for your carnival.
It's true. It may still be cold and frozen slush where I am but it must be Spring somewhere because Geek Counterpoint has a bumper crop of woo for you at The 58th Skeptics' Circle.
Also, don't forget that I'm hosting Carnival of the Godless right here at Neural Gourmet this Sunday, April 15th. Send me some infidel love (or blog posts, I'm not picky) via blogcarnival.com. The deadline is by midnight Friday.
A bumper crop of blog carnivals for the inquiring mind (and I don't mean the kind of minds that read The National Inquirer):read more »
Something for everybody! And last but not least, the umpteenth edition of Carnival of the Godless will be this Sunday at Hell's Handmaiden so get that godless blogging in via blogcarnival.com. Oh, and I should probably also note that Neural Gourmet will be playing host to Carnival of the Godless on April 15th. You know, just to give you a little extra time to work on those infidel masterpieces that you're all going to send my way.
The 54th meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is taking place at Action Skeptics.
Who knew Harry Houdini read the Skeptics' Circle? Well, I'm not surprised that he would read the Skeptics' Circle, merely that he can read the Skeptics' Circle (being dead and all). I think he might want to pay a visit to an ENT doc though; his voice sounds terrible, even for a dead guy! Go see for yourself at the 49th meeting of the Skeptics' Circle at Autism Street.
Thursday from Polite Company has almost managed to squash all of us skeptics into two dimensions for this 47th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. I say 'almost' because a couple of us got left out
but I'm not complaining. Besides, I don't look good in tights. I wouldn't mind a cape though. Do you think red is my color?
46th Skeptics' Circle at Left Brain/Right Brain.
Thanks to the wackiness of the International Date Line we got an early Carnival of the Liberals and now more time zone goodness this week as we get the gift of an early Skeptics' Circle from Salto Sobrius in Stockholm.
Can we hit woowoos on the nose with a rolled up newspaper whenever they use bad logic? Would it do any good? Well, that's a topic that's not explored at all in this, the 43rd meeting of The Skeptics' Circle taking place at Adventures in Ethics and Science.
Latest Skeptics' Circle is up at Immunoblogging and JM sees undead people. Better not tell M. Night Shyamalan.
Also you can get your fill of life sciences blogging with the latest Tangled Bank coming to us this time from Epigenetics News.
Get your tuxes and gowns because Interverbal is the hosting the awards ceremony in this, the 41st meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. Lots of enriched altie quackery this time around.
Well, don't let anyone tell you there's nothing interesting in the blogosphere, because we've got proof right here that anyone who says that is full of it. So, in no particular order and I hope I haven't forgotten anyone, here's the notable blog carnivals for the past week.
Over at Brainshrub, Paul was proudly showing off his birthday suit in the 17th Carnival of the Liberals.
Tangled Bank has become a grand old science blog carnival, with #58 hosted by Martin at Salto Sobrius.
And there's a hot, hot, hot Carnival of Education#76 down in Texas at the Education in Texas blog.
If you think the Texas heat is for the birds, then you're wrong because they've all flown across the Atlantic to do I and the Bird #28 with Katie over at Bogbumper.
If you're looking for a bite to eat, then maybe the skeptics will give you a Scooby Snack if you ask nicely. For it's 39th meeting, the Skeptics' Circle has taken a field trip to Franken Castle (aka Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant).
The brainy people are engaging in Pure Pedantry with Encephalon #2.
Finally, if you're feeling overwhelmed by all this great reading, then maybe you want to join everyone else Powering Down in Carnival of the Green #36.
Coming up Sunday we've got every infidel's delight, the Carnival of the Godless at Beware the Dogma and Synapse, the other neuroscience carnival at The Neurophilosopher's Blog, who coincidentally runs Encephalon.
The skeptics have been joined by Scooby and the gang for an extra spoooky 39th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle at Franken Castle (aka Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant).
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect skepticality... A Coca-Cola themed 38th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is available at Skeptic Rant.
Other fine carnivals that go with a friend and a coke are I and the Bird #27 at 10,000 Birds,74th Carnival of Education at NYC Educator, Tangled Bank #56 at e3 Information Overload and Philosopher's Carnival #32 at Adventures In Ethics and Science.
A whole passel of our favorite blog carnivals and two new blog carnivals that we hope will become favorites. [...]read more »
The 36th meeting of The Skeptics' Circle is currently underway in The Examining Room of Dr. Charles. While there's no word on whether or not the good doctor will be passing out lollipops after the examination you can be sure that there will be plenty of critical thinking applied to fuzzy precepts. Prickly quackery and malignant pseudoscience will be diagnosed and treated aggressively. As always, a ton of great reading. Oh, and you can find my silly little humor piece there too.
A couple of unusual blog carnival editions to point out today. The first is a beautifully illustrated I and the Bird by wildlife artist Carel Brest Van Kempen over at Rigor Vitae. Really, you shouldn't miss this. The subdued and restricted color pallete alone is striking to me. I really envy people with this kind of talent.
Next up is the 35th Skeptics' Circle guest-blogged by Skeptico's pseudonymous Creationist alter-ego Kennesaw Williams. Hey! Is Skeptico cribbing from yesterday's Carnival of the Liberals? In any case, you'll find the usual allotment of deliciously skeptical topics in this unusual presentation.
The skeptics have skipped the 33rd Skeptics' Circle this week instead opting for posting of a major scientific study:
Effects of uncritical thinking on neuronal death in users and non-users of the baloney detection kit: a review of recent literature.
Abstract: Complaints like "hurts my brain" and "blows my mind" as a result of exposure to incredible stories have recently been definitevely tied to the neuronal cell death (apoptosis). Furthermore, the notion of the usefullness of the Baloney Detection Kit (BDK) in protection of brain cells against the negative effects of incredulity has recently garnered significant support. In this review, the authors gather the most notable examples in recent scientific and medical literature on the subject, evaluate the currently available data on the effectivness of BDK and propose new avenues for further research.
The full study is available on Science and Politics.
