Joseph Mercola, the popular quack, has been selling tanning beds with a twist. He’s been claiming that exposing yourself to fairly high intensity ultraviolet light will prevent cancer. That’s right. An exposure that causes a low level of direct DNA damage prevents skin cancer, according to a quack.

The courts weren’t going to buy that nonsense, so Mercola settled a false advertising suit, promised to refund up to $5.3 million in tanning bed sales, and to never do it again. Of course he already has an explanation.

But speaking Thursday, Mercola said he only settled the case as “a business decision,” and stands by his claims that his tanning beds had cancer-fighting benefits and that Americans were suffering from what he called an “epidemic” of under-exposure to ultraviolet light, which he said could be treated by “moderate” sun bed use.

The duck says what?

He also swears he’s not selling these things for the money, but solely to help people.

While he acknowledged Thursday that he’d sold thousands of tanning beds between 2012 and last year, he said his business is not “a tool … to get me a bigger house and car” but rather a means of funding his mission to “inform consumers” about “natural health.”

He said he moved from the Chicago area to Florida, where he owns a waterfront mansion, four years ago because of his belief in the health benefits of the sun.

He’s not in it for the money, but he’s able to shrug off a $5 million judgment and has a waterfront mansion in Florida.

I have suddenly thought of one good consequence of global warming. One.

Since some Republicans want to criminalize masturbation, we’re going to have to come up with an alternative for lonely, frustrated people. Now there are lots of dead people around (and surprisingly, necrophilia is not illegal in some states), but I wouldn’t recommend sex with corpses — they are not at all responsive and tend not to be good partners — but what about spectrophilia? It turns out that some people think you can have sex with ghosts, and this has not been criminalized anywhere, yet.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Be in a great personal space — clean, happy, good mood. Be in your good senses.

2. Prepare your space: candles, incense, mood lighting, sexy music (just as if you were inviting in a living lover). Do NOT burn sage; that will keep spirits away.

3. Define your space and set its boundaries (i.e., bedroom only).

4. Protect your space in whatever way works with your belief system.

5. Start doing some slow deep breathing. Begin visualizing your ghostly lover — what it/he/she feels like, etc. ASK the universe (or whomever) to send you a ghostly lover. Be very clear that you want it to be positive, good, loving, and light — as well as hot, of course!

6. Softly add a chant to your deep breathing — something short that you can repeat easily, like “Come to me, loving spirits.”

7. Believe.

8. Hopefully you will start feeling sensations. You may hear something, smell something, notice orbs of light or shadow. Hopefully the physical sensations are coming — often a feeling of pressure on the body, the feel of a soft touch, and then different forms of sexual stimulation. Enjoy it!

9. Throughout your encounter, communicate with the spirit. Make sure there is mutual respect and that NOTHING is done or allowed that YOU are not happy or comfortable with.

10. When it is over, thank the spirit (you can decide it you want to invite it back or not) and CLOSE THE VEIL or portal that you opened. Consciously, verbally state that all entities must leave and you are closing the veil.

A couple of people tried it, and there’s only one small problem: ghosts don’t exist. But if they did, it’s nice to see that they expect consensual, respectful sexytimes.

Yet another study has been done to show that homeopathy doesn’t work.

After assessing more than 1,800 studies on homeopathy, Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council was only able to find 225 that were rigorous enough to analyze. And a systematic review of these studies revealed “no good quality evidence to support the claim that homeopathy is effective in treating health conditions.”

The verdict is in — actually, it’s been in for over a century. It doesn’t work. It can’t work. It’s been shown over and over again to not work. It ought to just be done with.

But it isn’t. I can still walk down to my local grocery store, and there next to the real over-the-counter medicines that actually relieve pain, clear up congestion, make my nose stop running, and reduce fevers, there are little bottles of homeopathic pisswater that claim to do those things, but don’t, and would still cost me $7 if I were stupid enough to buy them.

I take that back. Pisswater would have more substance to it than these things, and cost less.

Ken Ham is still babbling about the giant fake boat he’s building with taxpayer support in Kentucky.

The creationist said the ark — which will be the largest timber structure in the world when it’s completed — is a jaw-dropping experience for visitors who have been able to see it already.

These guests often stop in their tracks. They contemplate the massive beams and the craftsmanship, Ham said. They talk to me about the obvious complexity in the Ark’s engineering and architecture. In doing so, they begin to think about Noah in a correct way. You see, many people have (even unwittingly) adopted an evolutionary view of history, thinking that ancient people were less intelligent and less advanced than we are today. They wondered how Noah could have built such an impressive ship.

[Read more…]

Uh-oh. I’ve disappointed David Klinghoffer. I should probably put that on my CV.

You see, the other day he praised a fellow named Tom Gilson for a post in which he provided a succinct summary of Intelligent Design creationism, and I took that summary apart, point by point. You might think, perhaps Klinghoffer finds fault with my analysis? He doesn’t provide any rebuttals. Did I get something wrong in using Gilson’s definition of ID? Nope, he doesn’t say…that would be hard to do anyway, since Klinghoffer praised it as exactly accurate!, exclamation point and all. Even in his title he declares that Tom Gilson Nails It.

So what’s his complaint? That I corrected the wrong person.

[Read more…]

Another atheist has been murdered in Bangladesh, for atheism.

Nazimuddin Samad, a 26-year-old atheist who had taken part in protests against Islamist leaders, was attacked late on Wednesday near his university in Dhaka by unknown assailants carrying machetes.

“They hacked his head with a machete. As he fell down, one of them shot him in the head with a pistol from close range. He died on the spot,” deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Syed Nurul Islam told AFP.

They shouted “Allahu akbar” as they butchered a human being — a human being they presumably believe was created by Allah, whose body is an astonishing work of God, whose mind is the most wonderful thing in the universe. It’s a strange form of praise and worship, I think. Do they also stroll into museums and enjoy the artwork by destroying it?

Oh, yeah…I guess some of them do.

Maybe it’s not so much that they are obsessed with their gods, as they are besotted with the thrill of wanton destruction and sanctimonious self-validation.

The Skeptics Society of Bangladesh had their inaugural meeting last week.

Those are some extraordinarily brave people…and also people who are taking steps to improve their society.