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Skeptic Summary #318

Chemtrails, the Superbowl, Obamacare, free energy, the Natural History Museum and more!

Chemtrails - Follow them to their source.

Hey guys, it’s the friggin’ Sooper Bowl! - Attracts a lot of different business, we’re told.

“Obamacare” unconstitutional? - Different judges have different opinions.

Editor’s Choice: Would this work? - No.

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — The NMNH homepage looks unassuming enough. It’s a page with some changing pictures with captions, under a fairly typical menu bar that links to online exhibits, articles, videos, and really, I don’t know how much stuff because I haven’t been through most of it yet. Doing that is going to take me some time! I’ve explored some of The Ocean Portal and its Media Gallery of wonderful videos and photos that go on for a zillion pages or so, and the Hall of Human Origins, which also has a zillion links leading to tons of information. I mean really: we’re talking about the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History here, and not some podunk operation.


About The Museum:

Introduction to the National Museum of Natural History

The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is part of the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s preeminent museum and research complex. The Museum is dedicated to inspiring curiosity, discovery, and learning about the natural world through its unparalleled research, collections, exhibitions, and education outreach programs. Opened in 1910, the green-domed museum on the National Mall was among the first Smithsonian building constructed exclusively to house the national collections and research facilities.

Whether looking at the history and cultures of Africa, describing our earliest Mammalian ancestor or primate diversity around the world, examining ancient life forms including the ever popular dinosaurs, or exploring the beauty of rare gemstones such as uniquely colored diamonds, the Museum’s temporary and permanent exhibitions serve to educate, enlighten and entertain millions of visitors each year. The main building on the National Mall contains 1.5 million square feet of space overall and 325,000 square feet of exhibition and public space; altogether the Museum is the size of 18 football fields, and houses over 1000 employees. With a growing network of interactive websites, the Museum is transforming itself into a hub for national and international electronic education, accessible to anyone with access to the internet.

At the center of the Museum’s exhibition and research programs are its expertly documented collections: more than 126 million natural science specimens and cultural artifacts. Just to name a few of our museum holdings, the collections include 30 million insects carefully pinned into tiny boxes; 4½ million plants pressed onto sheets of paper in the Museum’s herbarium; 7 million fish in liquid-filled jars; and 2 million cultural artifacts, including 400,000 photographs housed in the National Anthropological Archives. Over 3½ million specimens are out on loan each year; over 15,000 visitor days are spent in the collections; and there are almost 600,000 additional visits to collection data bases available on the Web…

There are also games to play aimed at increasing our knowledge about whatever the subject of the game is. Mystery Skull Interactive is just such a game. So go! Check out the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History website! Go!

[Editor’s note: back in 2006, some SFN members had a great time visiting the brick-and-mortar National Museum of Natural History, and we can’t recommend it enough.]

SkeptiQuote: To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous. — Chinese Proverb

Wednesday: The chat started out about buying used cars. Some more used than others. The constitutionality of the health care programme, and the chewing off a single malt Scotch: What else than alcohol can taste as bad as alcohol and still be considered consumable? Also, looking for smart women seems like a full time job if you want "Brains, Body, Both!". Psychics helps Police solve crimes, fact or fiction? Not only USA TV has Christian programming. Finally: lovable animals that are not as cute as we imagine.

Come chat with us.

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The clueless cite the ignorant to argue against vaccines

Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code

Discovery of Jumping Gene Cluster Tangles Tree of Life

Evidence supporting your NHS reforms? What evidence, Mr Lansley?

Houdini’s Skeptical Advice: Just Because Something’s Unexplained Doesn’t Mean It’s Supernatural

Jerusalem UFO ‘Almost Certainly a Hoax’

The Jerusalem UFO at Dome Of The Rock on January 28, 2011

The Media Code for Homeopaths

No flu vaccine link to Guillain-Barré syndrome found

Over 500 ancient artefacts unearthed in northeastern Iran

Rare Insect Fossil Reveals 100 Million Years of Evolutionary Stasis

Sometimes, happiness is for bozos

Touching Death

What’s New by Bob Park

Got some skeptic news items? Send them to us, and we’ll think about adding them.

The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture, by Frederick S. Lane.



“Janet Jackson’s infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the 2004 Superbowl precipitated a nationwide controversy. To judge by the hysterical reaction, one would think that nothing so shocking had ever been seen on television. Yet, remarkably, during the conservative 1950s, similar breast-baring accidents on television (by Faye Emerson and Jayne Mansfield) raised barely a stir. Is America on the verge of another puritanical era? Is this new Puritanism the result of something more than just concerns for public decency?

First Amendment and emerging technology specialist Frederick S. Lane examines America’s changing attitudes toward decency and the politics of decency in this timely book. He takes a strong and unequivocal position that it is inappropriate and dangerous for the government to try to regulate morality. He accuses religious conservatives of starting ‘decency wars’ for motives no more noble than profit and political gain. As Lane astutely points out, such controversies generate a flood of books, speeches, and syndicated radio and television programs. More importantly, they fill the coffers of conservative politicians and ‘non-profits.’

Lane first sets the stage for the current controversy by reviewing the history of the decency debate from the invention of the camera as the catalyst for public decency concerns, through the mixing of morality and politics by the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, to the recent activist stance by the Federal Communications Commission against perceived indecency.

He spells out strategies for combating the rising influence of the Religious Right’s puritanical ploys by emphasizing that decency standards are a private and personal responsibility, not a matter of law enforcement. He asserts that we must continuously educate the public regarding the ruinous effects of government censorship, watered-down textbooks, and homophobia. Moreover, he stresses the supreme importance of supporting existing and new organizations to counteract the propaganda from groups like the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family.

Including interviews with politicians, religious leaders, entertainers, and other individuals across the spectrum of American culture, this compelling book is essential reading for understanding one of the most fiercely debated social issues of our nation.”

— Product Description

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1. Moon-walker claims alien contact cover-up
2. Funny FAILS
3. The Supper
4. Neti pots, sinus disease, and migraines
5. Intelligent Design is stupid
6. I hope these aren’t the first shots in a civil war
7. Dr. Jeffery Life and Cenegenics
8. Devonian Bunny fossil verified
9. PZ expelled from Expelled — Dawkins slips in!
10. An intro to Intelligent Design for skeptics
11. Scattershots: gargoyles & grotesques
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1. Fundamentalists Hate Noah’s Ark
2. Evolving a Venom or Two
3. Cold Reading
4. Miracle Thaw — The Bogus Miracle
5. Scientific Truth
6. The Bible’s Bad Fruits
7. Evolution is a Lie
8. TAM5
9. Miracle Thaw Tray
10. Is the Speed of Light Slowing Down?
11. Tommy Debates the Bible Answer man
12. The PQ Test
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