I get email

All it takes is a little prompting: I write a post titled “The Bible is not a medical text“, and next thing you know, someone sends me an email titled “The Vedas are a medical text”. It’s enough to make a fellow weep.

Dear Sir,

I am PhD Scholar, enrolled with Utkal University of Culture, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, India.
The Topic I selected is

“Vedas- A New Critical Analysis with Special reference to Human Body and Health”

The Vedas quotes about NaNo technology, and I have analyzed the details in depth and is available in PDF form. I have proved that supportive therapy to cure cancer and recovery from coma is possible if we improve the oxygen, Nitrogen, Sodium and urea content in the atmosphere.

If any one wish to have the details and if they contact me I am ready to share my findings with Nero surgeons and Cancer specialists. Please contact me for further details.

Please down load the abstract of my thesis

Regards

Ramachandran

Because if there is one thing our atmosphere is lacking, it’s an adequate urea content.

He did send along a copy of his abstract. It’s 29 pages long. It’s also hilarious.

Read it here.

Here in treating the diseases with blood disorder we are burning the oil, filtered through cotton thread create the heat and the heat so produced has the quality of the herbal along with the atomic force, that penetrates through the skin, combine with iron in the blood, converting them in to lead first, then vanadium, then iridium and so on. We are sending these rays through copper plates roof or by placing Egg shaped copper balls, so that the rays break in to millions anus and form NaNo particles and give good result.

Who knew our bodies were little nuclear reactors, busily transmuting elements? I’m not sure why the word “anus” suddenly intrudes there, but he does throw around the term “NaNo” a lot, and it’s always capitalized in the peculiar way.

He’s really infatuated with the idea of correlating radioactive decay with something going on in the body.

In the case of Cancer cells that the cell of electron eats away the magnetic force the heating elements and forms a mound which creates Heavy Hydrogen rays and swindling the magnetic force from the nuclides. If we study and identify the type of radiation that the cancer cell eliminates when contacting the tissues and blood and start decay, we may find many of these emissions are accompanied by the additional emission of one or more gamma rays. Naturally it may seem that the longer a particular atom of a radioactive nuclide has been around, the greater the chance it will decay.

But for the most part, it’s incoherent gibberish.

The change in atmosphere will help a lot in improving the condition of the Cancer patient and that through NaNo will help a lot. This was explained as stories in Puranas and the herbals were given the name, which they started worshipping as gods and goddess. Particularly the herbals that cured cancer, which genes had the similar to heads of dogs was worshipped as Bhairavas which use to come with dogs to fight with the enemies. The dog is none other than the plant Calotropis Gigantea Alba.(In Sanskrit it is Alarka)

Got that? Genes have the heads of dogs which are actually a reference to an herbal treatment, therefore changing the atmosphere with NaNo technology will cure cancer.

Now my head hurts.

Crap. Now he has sent me more email.

Please read the full text attached herewith and post your comments.

I am brahmin and read Vedas Fully A to Z. I am aged 60 and has an authority to discuss about this.

Do you know I read 100s of manuscript written in Sanskrit and Nagari.

Do you know about Vedas?

If so at what extent?

It is a great work done by me. I am not talking about gods and goddess.

If you wish to argue with me read the full text and mail me your questions.

Read this several time before posting any comments.

Read these entire text if you have patience.

A man who encourage researches should be encouraged.

The doctors are giving oxygen to the patient. Do you that atmosphere has all other components apart from oxygen that is needed by our system? Our body needs all the chemical content in the room through our breath and our environments are fully responsible for our health. When a candle light dinner causes cancer why a herbal smoke can not work as a supportive medicine to cure cancer?

So before scolding any one use your mind.

Use polite words.

By the by do you know the Lankathipathy Ravana has written comments on Rig Veda that deals with Foetus and child birth?

If you don’t know come to India I will show that book to you.

I wish you to meet me in India, in chennai I will show from where I collected these materials.

Ever page has a foot note please go through them

Wish you to meet you and argue and tell more in near future that too after you read the entire text.

Regards

Ramachandran

He included a pile of attachments — it looks like about 600+ pages. No, I’m not going to read them.

Oh, OK. I glanced at one.

It was B.C. 25,000 the first Veda manthra was chanted in South Pole.

The learned pandits and scholars who studied and analyzed the various Planets in the universe, divided the path of the Planets as Zodiac, at 300 each consisting of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces.

They came to a conclusion that each Planets is creating a vibration and named them as Electrons (-ve) the male planets; Magnetic forces (+ve), the female Planets and Transgender (That is the æthers), that transfers the energy in to the Earth, due to which the human body formed and the life energy is stored in the Earth.

They also got concrete evidences that all the rays coming out of each Planets are coming to South Pole where all the rays and vibrations combine together and throw them to the Earth, which is pulled by the North Pole. They felt that South Pole is axle of the Earth. This they named as Gayathri.

I’m done. That’s enough.

Cheaper than NASA

I’d love to visit Mars, especially if I could go with some dolphins. And now, for a mere $1550, I could attend the Dolphins & Teleportation Symposium 2011 and learn how to teleport!

This Workshop will include interspatial communication, quantum merging, E.T contact, teleportation to Mars, swimming in gentle waters with dolphins, sound healing, heart opening, cell activating, soul leadership, your planetary mission, laughter and humor, divine feminine, Geomancy, higher consciousness, the transformation of the ages, sacred wisdom societies, Martian life & artifacts, creating new timelines, mysticism and physics, empathy, intuition and creativity combined with logic and wisdom; PLUS Alternative 4 – the benevolent, peaceful reality we are creating.

That all sounds wonderful, except for the “heart opening” part. This could all be a front for a sinister cult that draws loving people in with tales of dolphins and laughter, and when they get you alone in the seminar room, the black robes are donned, the chanting begins, and out come the razor-sharp obsidian knives and you learn that the magic teleportation requires a sacrifice of a heart to the dark dolphin gods. At least all the participants will have wisely gotten high before the blood starts flowing.

Oh, well, I’d still go. Do you think they’ll pay my way to come over and cover the event for a popular and widely read blog?

Scientists with style

I think more scientists should be in GQ. Larry Moran exhibits both style and craftsmanship with his handmade haberdashery.

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Now you might think I should be envious — I should have such panache! — but the tinfoil cone simply isn’t my way. Here in the frigid North, unlike temperate Toronto, such a device would refrigerate our heads, and we turn to fashions with élan and insulation.

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Now you know why I get written up in Playboy and Larry doesn’t.

Of course, some people have a boot fetish instead. It’s very impractical: no way could you wear those and two pairs of thick woolen socks at the same time.

The Bible is not a medical text

Although citing the Bible seems to be a way to fast-track bad science papers to publication. In yet another example of a journal letting bad Bible interpretations pass for science, a paper titled “Newer insights to the neurological diseases among biblical characters of old testament has been published in the Annals of the Indian Academy of Neurology. It isn’t new or newer, it doesn’t offer any insights, and the title isn’t even grammatical. Among its inventions is the idea that Sampson was autistic because he was violent and had odd dietary habits, that Isaac was diabetic, and that Ezekiel had a stroke.

Could someone explain to me how dubious diagnoses based on vague descriptions of serially translated myths can actually advance our understanding of disease, other than by promoting the publication careers of scientists happy to pander to superstition? I suppose one use for these things is enhancing the jocularity of interactions between neuroscientists at the lab bench, since laughing at religious idiots could be a productive bonding experience between the grad students and post-docs.

(via Neuroskeptic and Autism Blog)

We are not Geoffrey Beene’s Kids!

Jerry Lewis, the comedian, hosts a yearly telethon to raise money for children with muscular dystrophy. I find it entirely unwatchable, because it comes across as patronizing and condescending, and seeing Jerry Lewis mug for the camera and present himself as the loving, maudlin hero trying to save these pathetic, pitiful wretches makes me want to kick him in the balls. I think he means well and he does want to raise money for a worthy charity, but by turning the ill into their disease he diminishes them. And by talking down to them and referring to people with muscular dystrophy as “Jerry’s Kids”, he doesn’t make them look better — he holds himself above them and trivializes the human victims of the disease. It also backfires; the term “Jerry’s Kids” has become an insult. Just ask the Urban Dictionary.

Jerrys Kids is a derogatory reference to the the socialy retarded, mentaly challenged, inbred looking, trailer park hilbillys that appear on the Jerry Springer or individuals of simular appearance show. taken from the Jerry Lewis chairitable telethon.

(Whatever incompetent wrote that, by the way, makes himself look like that which he describes. It isn’t even a good description of a muscular wasting disease.)

Dignity isn’t something that can be bestowed on another, it can only be taken away. And Jerry Lewis has been stripping away people’s dignity for a long, long time.

Marty Robbins has exposed a similar campaign on behalf of scientists that can similarly only harm. The Geoffrey Beene Foundation had the well-meaning but entirely awful idea of trying to help the image of scientists by having them pose with a collection of third-tier or has-been rock stars. Oh, look at these sad, uninteresting nobodies who never do anything exciting. How can we help them? I know! We’ll let them get their picture taken with Debbie Harry or Jay Sean…that’ll add a little glamor to their dull, drab lives.

It sends a message. Scientists aren’t interesting in their own right, so they can be lofted out of pitiful obscurity simply by snapping their photo with someone who is really accomplished, you know, a pop star who can look pretty while rhyming. I’m sure it was very sweet for Heart and Elizabeth Blackburn to pose together, but it is incredibly condescending to think that a frickin’ Nobel Prize winner needs a photo op like that to enhance her reputation. She doesn’t need celebrity endorsements.

Yes, I know: Americans are stupid, they don’t know a thing about telomeres, but they admire Dolly Parton’s bust, so you could argue that we need to bootstrap science into the public consciousness by first appealing to what they do know. I actually think that’s a reasonable idea. But running ads in GQ magazine is a bad way to do it. There is no connection made between interesting people doing exciting science, no attempt made to communicate science in a way that people could understand — instead, we get a throw-away gimmick of having smart people stand next to popular entertainers, as if glitz were infectious.

How does this work? Do the scientists win when one gets to appear in a Lady Gaga video, when Angeline Jolie adopts one, or when P. Diddy lets one into his entourage? Being associated with pop stars does not improve science education one whit unless what makes them cool is their science, not their association with a famous non-scientist.

I’m not alone in feeling that this is futile and patronizing. Other scientists are reacting the same way: ERV doesn’t like it, and Jerry Coyne is unimpressed. Ophelia Benson thinks it is superficial, and she’s right. The only people who think this is a winner of an idea are the rockstars of accommodationism, who’ve always been light on the substance anyway.

Try again, Geoffrey Beene. You’ll get praise for your work in popularizing science when you can let scientists shine by their own light, instead of merely reflecting the dim luster of a few remote stars.

P.T. Barnum was right

There’s a sucker born every minute, and you’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

The Creation “Museum” is expanding and building a theme park. It’s simply a fact that Ken Ham’s Institution of Ignorance is doing business like gangbusters — it is well-attended and successful, has low-brow appeal, has negligible operating expenses (unlike a real museum), and is drawing in crowds of rubes and doing a great job of separating them from their money. I’m not at all surprised that Ham is rubbing his hands together and calculating new ways to fleece the flock; it’s what his kind does.

It’s a bit embarrassing having this gigantic, growing symbol of the failure of American education metastasizing in our midst, but it’s not their fault. The way we’ll fix it is not to shut down the stupid place, but to teach people that creationism is foolishness, so that Ham’s flock shrinks.

Otherwise, though, there’s also the hope that this may be a fatal attack of hubris. There have been other cases of evangelical Christians building theme parks, and they don’t end well. Balancing on that thin line between preachiness and fun isn’t easy, and I don’t think the thin-skinned and frighteningly dour Ken Ham can do it.

So, how did Hitchens do?

There was a debate in Toronto yesterday, between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair on whether religion is a force for good in the world, and I think readers here properly predicted the results: Hitchens was dynamic, clear, and forceful, while Blair was a simpering, weak, maker of feeble excuses. It is resolved: religion is wrong and evil.

You can get full accounts from the BBC, the Guardian, and the New Humanist.

From the crazy part of Minnesota

Minnesota State Representative Tom Hackbarth is a Republican. How can you tell? By his deranged behavior.

A security guard at a St. Paul Planned Parenthood clinic called the cops last week after he spotted a Republican state lawmaker with a loaded gun in the parking lot. But the pol says he was only “checking on” his online girlfriend, who he thought may be on a date with another man — a claim police have not been able to corroborate because the man did not have a phone number or address for the woman.

Because that’s how married (but putatively in the midst of a divorce) Republicans look for their girlfriends: by hanging out in Planned Parenthood parking lots with a gun. It’s totally charming that he didn’t know her address and phone number, since they were just “online” friends — I guess he was just bringin’ the real by stalking her with a gun.

I am really amused by his disclaimer.

“I was not a jealous boyfriend,” he said. “I was just trying to check up on her. It’s totally a misunderstanding.”

Yeah. Just checking. With a gun. That’s how we all monitor our wimmin.

Are you surprised that his district overlaps with Michele Bachmann’s?