Angie The Anti-Theist Profiled On Slate

My friend, Angie Jackson, is one brave, tough lady. If you don't know the story of her Tweeting her medical abortion, this excellent piece by Kathryn Joyce will clue you in:

"I like to say I'm allergic to secrets," says Jackson. "I grew up in an abusive and fundamentalist childhood, so secrets and lies were par for the course. I've made the conscious decision in the last two years to be open about that. So it flowed for me; I write about everything."

Joyce is the author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Buy it.

My two cents: I have no respect for the opinion that the fetus is more important than the woman. And those who use fear and intimidation are terrorists and beneath contempt. And those who use violence should never see the sun again.

Love u, Angie.

Your most loyal Anteater.

Andrew Koenig And Depression

How sad is this:

Family and friends found the body of...missing actor (Andrew Koenig) in a Vancouver, British Columbia, park Thursday afternoon. At a press conference afterward, his father, Walter Koenig, said: "My son took his own life."

And his father puts it so well:

"The only thing I want to say is if you're one of those people who feel that you can't handle it anymore, if you can learn anything from this it's that there are people out there who really care," Walter Koenig said. "You may not think so, and ultimately it may not be enough, but there are people that really, really care. "Before you make that final decision, check it out again; talk to somebody..."

Depression sucks.

Get help.

(Dumbass) Quote Of The Day

Suzanne Summers brings teh crazie on Patrick Swayze's cancer death:

"Why couldn't they have built him up nutritionally and got ten (sic) rid of the toxins? . . . I hate to be this controversial . . . but I have to speak out."

So do we, Ms. Summers; you're a fucking loon.

Does it surprise absolutely anyone that see has a book coming out, presumably on holistic "medicine" that deals with cancer?

And full credit to the NY Post. For a trashy piece of birdcage-liner, they called it accurately:

"Holistic hoo-ha."

Via Pharyngula.

Fat Cyclist Loses Wife To Cancer

Not just ANY fat cyclist--Eldon "Fat Cyclist" Nelson. His wife, Susan, succumbed to metastatic breast cancer Wednesday night.

I don't know Fatty as well as some (like some guy named Lance), but I'm catching up. This annual Christmas letter he wrote a few years ago strikes a nerve.

Go give him some love, please.

Is God All In Your Head?

A new series by NPR seeks to answer that. Money quote from part 1:

"Sigmund Freud declared God to be a delusion, and others maintained that God, if there is such a thing, is beyond the tools of science to measure.

But now, some researchers are using new technologies to try to understand spiritual experience. They're peering into our brains and studying our bodies to look for circumstantial evidence of a spiritual world. The search is in its infancy, and scientists doubt they will ever be able to prove — or disprove — the existence of God."

Podcast is here. Oh, how I love science.

Priests + Psychoanalysis = Bad

Make up your own joke:

"I found this fascinating aside in a 1969 article on 'Psychiatric Illness in the Clergy' about a group of monks who underwent psychoanalysis, causing two thirds of them to realise they were "called to married life". The Pope immediately banned psychoanalysis from the priesthood as a result..."

Via Sullivan.

Vatican can dish it out, can't take it

Oh, the poor, poor pope. He gets reamed after putting his foot in his mouth over condom use, but we can't make fun of him.

Just to remind everyone:

Speaking to reporters on his way to Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, the Pope said HIV/Aids was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".

The solution lies in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer", the AFP news agency quotes him as saying."

Of course, everyone with a brain in their heads shot him down as being up to and including an evil quack, but the Vatican, typically, is not backing down:

"We will not accept the Pope being made the object of mockery and offense, in the media or elsewhere," said Angelo Bagnasco, the country's top bishop, citing the "controversy about condoms".

"He represents for everyone a moral authority, which this journey has made people appreciate even more," Bagnasco said."

Fuck you very much, you phony bullshit holy man. The pope said something stupid, irresponsible, and demonstrably untrue. And unlike spouting some nonsense about whether or not the communion wafer is really the literal body of Christ, or the Immaculate Conception, this is an issue that can cost real humans their health and their lives. There is zero excuse for saying that condom use leads to HIV infection.

And for those of you who think you can defend the pope, fuck you, too. It's not like he flubbed saying the inconsistent use of condoms leads to HIV infection (which is true). He's saying that spirituality and other bullshit nonsense is preferable to proven scientific means of disease prevention.

For the billion and 20th time, the Vatican and its latest corpse-in-waiting are trying to say that all we have to do to prevent sexually transmitted disease is to avoid sex. Period. In other words, just suppress 400 million years of vertebral evolution, our basic primate nature, and the natural and healthy outlet of what can be a beautiful and intimate expression of affection and love, and it'll work just like all the other times in the past.

Sure, no problems there. Just look at your own priesthood. Or for that matter, call up a study on teenage pregnancy rates or teenage STD infection rates. I'm sure that the Catholics are at a big, fat zero for all of recorded history.

Or better yet, don't. Just retract your statement, say you're sorry, and then SHUT UP.

Forever.

Moral authority, my ass.

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Via Skepchick.

Brilliant satire on homeopathy

From the Daily Mash, which is apparently Britain's answer to the Onion:

"An NHS hospital which used untrained receptionists to treat patients still performed better than homeopathy, research shows."

If you wanna know what homeopathy is, go here.

Via Skepchick.

PZ Myers: The Pope is an Evil Quack

What he said:

You've all heard the news by now, I'm sure: the pope was traveling to Africa, a continent plagued with widespread sexually transmitted diseases and also, coincidentally, one of the few places where Catholicism is growing, and he dispensed a little medical advice:

Speaking to reporters on his way to Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, the Pope said HIV/Aids was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".

The solution lies in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer", the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.

Consistent condom use is associated with a reduction in the incidence of HIV infection of approximately 80%. It does not increase the problem. I know the Catholic church is reliant on the denial of human nature, something demonstrated regularly by the activities of its own priests, but at some point they have to recognize a simple reality: people like to have sex. You aren't going to talk them out of it without warping their psychology in a truly pathological way (again, witness the Catholic priesthood), but you might be able to get them to practice sex in a way that protects their health.

Claiming that condoms increase the problem is disinformation and outright quackery — it's a lie that will kill people. That is what the pope is doing on his little tour, spreading lies, doing harm, and setting back efforts to materially help the afflicted. "Friendship" won't help the children of a woman dying slowly of AIDS, nor will gilt-robed old men whispering about "spirituality" do one scrap of good against a dangerous reality.

Via Pharyngula.

Top 10 Medical Myths

Including one bonus: No, it's NOT harder to lose weight than to gain weight.

Story here.

Court thumps "vaccines --> autism" crowd

Oh, my heart bleeds piss for the likes of Jenny McCarthy. (end sarcasm). Money quote:

"It was abundantly clear that petitioners' theories of causation were speculative and unpersuasive," the court concluded in one of a trio of cases ruled on Thursday.

The ruling was anxiously awaited by health authorities and families who began presenting evidence in June 2007. More than 5,500 claims have been filed by families seeking compensation through the government's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The claims are reviewed by special masters serving on the U.S. Court of Claims.

Let me get this straight, 55 hundred people believe this enough to file for a government hand-out? This is, was, and will be a farce until a lot more EVIDENCE crops up to suggest any relationship. In the meantime, I want to see someone in the press ask Jenny McCarthy to her face why she shouldn't be called a baby-killer for discouraging people from immunizing their kids.

There's a great book called Autism's False Prophets which should be mandatory reading in medical schools. When you go to Amazon.com and type in "autism," this book shows up at #10 in the search. McCarthy's little book of woo and lies shows up at #5. Sometimes I despair for my species.

Dan Savage: In Defense of Dignity

Anyone who reads this and remained unmoved is a cad.

Suddenly, the doctor was at the door to my mother's room again. He waved me out into the hall. He needed a medical directive. Immediately. Her vital signs were tanking. If we were going to put a tube in her, and put her on machines that could breathe for her, it had to be now. Right now. So it fell to me to walk back into my mother's room...(and) tell her she was going to die..."

The piece to which I've linked is Savage's exhortation to the voters of Washington State to vote in favor of a proposition to allow assisted suicide for the terminally ill, a so-called "death with dignity" initiative. He just watched his mother die of pulminary fibrosis a couple of months ago, so he's in a position to know what he's talking about.

And the Catholic Church and other life-at-all-costs organizations are fighting it. This line captures all my libertarian sensibilities perfectly:

"The proper response to religious opposition to choice or love or death can be reduced to a series of bumper stickers: Don't approve of abortion? Don't have one. Don't approve of gay marriage? Don't have one. Don't approve of physician-assisted suicide? For Christ's sake, don't have one. But don't tell me I can't have one—each one—because it offends your God.

"Fuck your God."

Or, if you like, fuck your idea of what you think God wants.

This is especially heart-wrenching to me because of my own mother's situation. She's in a nursing home, in stable health, but with a degenerative condition that will never allow for improvement. And I think about how she will die constantly. How will I react when/if I am someday put into this position? How long will I be able to "hold it together" to make the decisions that can only be made once and had best be made correctly?

I don't know.

All I know is, my heart goes out to Savage and his family.

HT: Pharyngula
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Update: Savage has more here. Reader reactions and their own heart-rending stories here.