As Social Media joins the mainstream there is a disturbing new trend emerging. Someone who three months ago never even heard of Social Media is now calling themselves an expert. Recently I saw a website offering “Social Media Certification”. This was from someone many in the community ha...

George Will has written an irresponsible article denying climate change (AKA global warming). Here’s the basic problem with George Will’s writing, as stated succinctly by The Wonk Room: In “Dark Green Doomsayers,�  Will attacked Secretary of Energy Steven Chu for discussing a worst-case sce...

In various mostly-European projects, we’ve been noticing that trees are coming under assault from presumably well meaning tree-hugging architects. Four of the more visible cases in recent months: The cocoon is supported by steel suspension cables that are attached to the tree’s stronger bran...

I’ve been noticing a disturbing phenomenon in client SEO land.  Now, I’m not going to call out any Phoenix SEO companies specifically, but if you’re reading this, you probably know who you are. Some of the people in the industry that I pegged as pure BS artists are landing clients...

Robert Proctor is a historian of science at Stanford who has pointed out a bizarre modern phenomenon:  the coexistence of easily available factual information and ignorance.  That is the subject of Clive Thompson’s article in Wired: He has developed a word inspired by this trend: agnotology....

I’ve been hearing from all sides since I took my swipe at Deepak Chopra et al. the other day. The biggest subgroup with a grievance have been the people who weren’t happy with my comments about Qi Gong. Part of the problem is that “Qi Gong� means different things to different people, ranging...

Yet Another Change In The TARP With the stock market taking out the previous lows, consumer confidence at multiple year lows, company after company warning about earnings, the chairmen of JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch projecting a prolonged recession. commodities dropping like rocks and my own persona...

Here’s a standard account of autism, from Wikipedia: Autism is a brain development disorder that first gives signs during infancy or childhood and generally follows a steady course without remission or relapse. Impairments result from maturation-related changes in various systems of the brain....

I wrote about complacency once before. I focused on the complacency of most Americans in the face of the energy crisis that is clearly upon us.  We have no assurance that gasoline won’t double or triple in price over the next five or 10 years, throwing our economy into a massive depression. ...

Paul Slansky is frustrated that conservatives have captured the American Flag as their symbol. The emblem of the country’s highest aspirations was mindlessly ceded to the holier-than-thou zealots who used it as a bludgeon against the less fanatical. Here’s Slansky’s solution: Progr...