Guns n Roses made me an atheist

It was 1992 and I was 16. I'd been cranking the hell out of Guns n Roses' latest albums, Use Your Illusion I & II. I'd worshipped the band since being introduced to Appetite For Destruction by friends a year or two earlier. The band appealed to my rebellious streak for many reasons: Axl's gravelly wail and angry, occasionally hate-filled lyrics seemed like they were specifically tuned in to my undirected teenage rage, Slash's peerless solos helped me rise above it all and I just loved the raw, grinding guitars and the whole "fuck you" aspect of the band. Really, what more could a 16 year-old want? The Gunners, in the end, were most of the reason I ended up growing my hair and starting a rock band with my mates that same year (a band which still exists to this day - curiously enough we're working on an album we started recording in 2002 which, if it ever gets finished, is likely to rival Chinese Democracy in terms of completion time). But how did they cause me to leave my faith?

Anti-quack gets his blog back

Via PZ: the good news. The bloke who called Maloney a quack (and subsequently had his blog pulled by Moritz after some world-class BAWWWW) is back online.

What we say ... what they hear

Cartooooooooons!

Ratzinger waves his wand at Australia

Like Steve Jobs announcing a shiny thing to keep the fanboys drooling, Ratzinger has announced that nun Mary MacKillop will be canonised as Australia's first saint.

Quacks ahoy!

Following on from my previous post calling out a certain quack calling himself "Dr" Mahoney, I bring you this following passage, harvested by PZ, from the site of an uber-quack named Andreas Moritz. Moritz is going in to bat for Mahoney and, true to the quack playbook, threatening a lawsuit. But what really grabbed me is the passage below concerning cancer:

...Constant conflicts, guilt and shame, for example, can easily paralyze the body's most basic functions, and lead to the growth of a cancerous tumor.

After having seen thousands of cancer patients over a period of three decades, I began to recognize a certain pattern of thinking, believing and feeling that was common to most of them. To be more specific, I have yet to meet a cancer patient who does not feel burdened by some poor self-image, unresolved conflict and worries, or past emotional trauma that still lingers in his/her subconscious. Cancer, the physical disease, cannot occur unless there is a strong undercurrent of emotional uneasiness and deep-seated frustration.

Citation. Needed. You bloodsucking fucking leech. Vampires might be cool right now, but leeches? Not so much. Probably never. You are not a pale, gaunt, romantic, eerily sexy European. You are a small, slimy slug-looking thing with no purpose to your existence but to poo out from a dark, moist crack to remove sustenance from unsuspecting organisms.

Christopher Maloney is a QUACK, part four hundred billion

Apparently, according to our benevolent be-tentacled lord & master PZ Myers, some ranting naturofail named Chris Maloney is a quack. Observe the money quote and see for yourself:

Parents waiting for vaccinations can provide their children with black elderberry, which blocks the H1N1 virus. A single garlic capsule daily cuts in half the incidence and the severity of a flu episode for children.

Quackery in a nutshell. Pick a current, serious health issue. Attach to it extraordinary claims. Provide no evidence. Man the harpoons in case someone dares to disagree.

Which is more or less what happened. Based on that passage a student criticised, with good reason in my humble opinion, naturopathy, calling it "pure bull". Okay, whatever, happens all the time. But, instead of going "meh" and dealing with this difference of opinion like a growed-up adult male man, le Canard complained to Wordpress, who hosted the student's blog. Wordpress shut the guy's blog down. Nice work, Wordpress. Way to suck oily prison balls.

It just never seems to end

You've heard the story before: a Catholic priest molests, abuses or rapes children. The Vatican "investigates" the matter itself and, instead of censuring or dismissing the culprit or involving the authorities, quietly shuffles the priest to another area. The abuse occurs again. The procedure happens again. The cycle continues. Years or decades later, documents are unearthed, records are unsealed, whistles are blown, victims come forward and a scandal ensues. Empty babbling from the Vatican is heard about investigations and about how seriously they are taking everything. The story fades from the press. Until it happens again, somewhere else. Chances are you know someone who's been affected by one of these stories, perhaps directly. Chances are you don't know it.

Hooray for Christian spam.

We get email!

I present, in all its ghastly-fonted (it was actually 12 point Comic Sans MS but Blogger doesn't seem to have it available - lucky you), horribly-formatted, grammar-challenged, big red glory a Godspam that arrived in my work inbox today. Not my personal inbox, the enquiries inbox that I'm chained to this month (this particular Christian wasn't all that discerning with their mailing list, were they?):

Iron Man 2 trailer!

*drool*