I'm with you on this.  I like a drink as much as the next guy.  In fact, I probably like it better than the next guy.  In fact, while he wasn't looking I downed his.  I digress.

This is actually a really good example of why New Scientist sucks.  Look at that headline:

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Well, like Bill I was using hyperbole. I don't actually mean to suggest that she's criminally liable.

How about "moral idiocy?" How does that grab you? Too idiotic (in both the original and the pejorative senses) to grasp the consequences of putting quacks on her highly-rated air, and...

1st things 1st. Let's kill Bill. There's lots of perfectly good reasons, and I'm not sure we need to detain ourselves in sorting out which one was particularly heinous.

That said, what a lot of talking-out-our-arses is going on here today, eh? Oprah responsible? Good God get a grip,...

Don't ask me.  I don't give a damn.

Why do you think they call it the RED Cross? Because they're commies!

Wolfrum is right to judge Oprah for endorsing quackery.  C'mon folks, lighten up.  Of course she didn't literally kill anybody, but a person seen as an authority should not endorse ridiculous "self-help" methods that are at best a placebo-effect and at worse actually dangerous. 

If more people have to die so a bar owner can make the free decision to allow or not allow smoking in his/her bar, then good.  There are certain principles that are worth dieing over.  The freedom to do what you choose is one of those.  There is a price to pay for freedom.  Would you die on your...

What, you gonna put this on his Report Card? "D- in Hoaxing? Kid needs to focus."

I know Americans have great faith in Education, but I'd lean more toward the use of physical violence to resolve problems like this. Beating the snot out of Dad just seems...

Of course there's truth to what you're saying, but your method of engagement suggested that anyone who criticizes Oprah is doing so because she's black, and that hurts her as much, if not more so, than those "who are turned off...

Do you really think that's what WKW is doing, or are you just projecting? Why don't you try reading some other pieces he has written before jumping to such a ludicriously absurd statement?

As for me, I'll admit that I don't watch Oprah on a regular basis, but I have enjoyed her pieces on...

Although I realize it's not the main thrust of your piece, are you aware that smoking bans have been linked to a decrease in heart attacks in non-smokers?

I have to say that I'm skeptical that this is a hoax. At first, when I heard what the boy said I thought it sounded very much like a hoax, but the more I thought about it, the more the idea bothered me. If it was a hoax, wouldn't he have done a better job at it? I can think of a lot better "...

I suppose I have a lower opinion of Larry King and The Today Show than you do, because I don't consider them news shows any more than I consider Fox News to be a news network.

As for it being clear when Oprah's endorsing something, it seemed fairly clear to many here that she was...

It's very clear when Oprah is endorsing something, she does so very explicitly & with great enthusiasm.  Just because a guest appears on Oprah's shows does not mean she's endorsing them. Over the years she's interviewed everyone from skinheads to Satanic worshippers & she certainly did...

This is a very scary accusation to make.  Neither Oprah nor safe alternative healing methods killed those people.  We don't know what happened, but obviously it was not good.  Sounds like people were dehydrated and hungry... both are not advised by any good alternative healer.  I'm sure there...

Oprah had this author on to discuss positive thinking.  Positive thinking was not the cause of any death.  And Larry King & the Today show interviewed the same person.  The job of a talk show host is to interview people from all perspectives.

Oprah had this guest on to discuss the power of positive thinking.  Positive thinking is not a treatment that causes harm, & even if it were, the job of a talk show host is to interview people from all perspectives.

Oprah hasn't given Jenny McCathy her own show & the very few times Jenny McCarthy has ever appeared on Oprah, her views on vaccines were hardly even discussed.  And just because someone appears on Oprah does not make it an implied endorsement.  Oprah's a talk show host, it's her job to...

What an idiotic article. 

"Words have meaning"?  Actually, you've just shown that for you they don't.  I agree with you that Oprah shouldn't promote quackery, but she didn't kill anyone.

Even more upsetting is the fact that senators and congressmen are discussing health care bills with allowances for faith healing and pseudoscience at this very moment:

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Mr. Wolfrum, tear down this blog! (There I go again with the ridicule. Hey, does that count as two Reagan references? If so, how many conservo-points does that earn me, and where can I redeem them?)

Firstly, sciences like Homeopathy, which had colleges all over North America before Phsycian forced monopoly on health, have nothing to do with this event, Nor does Oprah!! She is not at fault because a person got lost in their brain. And thought they are God and could control people against...

Truth is stranger than satire: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14021621/teenage_holy_war

Here's my own take (exceprted...

Thanks, quinn. Well put, and point taken. My book takes O'Reilly's war on Christmas--the first mainstream application of the persecution/conspiracy formula--as its focal point, and I plan to devote a couple of chapters to the alleged "war on Christianity," starting with the Moral Majority, so I'...

Much as I can't stand Oprah's penchant for quackery, an accident in a sweat lodge doesn't really have anything to do with it.  Yes, the retreat was associated with "the Secret" and its attendant charlatans, but...

There are different types of responsibility: criminal, civil, and ethical. Oprah is clearly not criminally responsible, and I'm fairly certain it'd be hard to show she's civilly responsible (i.e., that a civil suit against her would be successfull, even if she weren't able to hire the best...

We cannot hold Oprah responsible for anyone's acts other than her own. While she DID endorse The Secret, she was not responsible for the sweat lodge tragedy. I would, however, like to see her participate in the discussion.

PS I also agree with the race-guy below. There will no more criticizing of black people on this site, period! Except for Michael Steele.

You sound Racist.

In related news, the decapitated and dismembered corpse of WKW was found. Authorities, assisted by HARPO, Inc., have ruled his death suicide. No investigation is planned.

You know, I (and I suspect many others here at Dagblog) have had a good laugh at Conservapedia's desire to make Jesus more Republican, but the more I dwell on it, the more it actually scares me. I know it seems so silly to us that we just can't take it seriously, but LDS and Scientology were...

Thanks to Vishavjit of sikhtoons.com for sharing his apt comic: Sikh Man of the Year.

Thanks. I obviously need to immerse myself in Lakoff, one of my first priorities when and if I get a publisher. Anything that you recommend in addition to Don't Think of an Elephant and The Political Mind?

Related to your previous comment, I think that the most difficult...

The appointment of a Goldman Sachs exec to "supervise the SEC's Office of Market Intelligence, with an eye to improving the monitoring, collection and analysis of the hundreds of thousands of tips and complaints the agency receives annually" is shocking and I don't shock easily anymore.

I don't think he has any interest in getting it. I think he figures he's got a future like Bill Clinton's touring the world making mega millions off speeches and picking up honorary degrees and awards.

I don't think you could compel him to be something he doesn't believe in. He uses Reagan as an example far more often than he does FDR. I honestly do not think he has any idea how bad things are out here for us little people and I'm not sure he cares all that much. His economic policies don't...

That's good.

Some. I'm definitely going to address Lakoff's notion of re-framing. But his approach strikes me as too narrowly linguistic. When right-wing paranoiacs reframe issues like health care, they don't just coin new phrases like "death panel" or "death book," they create an entire story around the...

Here's another interesting little tidbit for those who can't quite bring themselves to admit that Summers is a dangerous, irresponsible and criminally negligent money man:

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Remember when Ed Asner was trying to rustle up a Socialist Democratic party, and got Hollywood black-balled for his efforts? I was ready to join. He was born in Sept. 41; would make him ? 70 in 2012? That's still within the age requirements, isn't it?
Sanders/Elizabeth Warren.

What choice do we have if we aren't in favor of the current rigged table? I'd be for a Sanders/Grayson ticket in 2012.

Pro-choice, anti-choice plutocrats, plus some social issues I like well. But where there ARE not-soldout Congresspeople, the good ones are Dems. Bernie Sanders has a rip-snorter video up:

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And will require true reform for health care in order to increase the pricing competition for American-made goods, lessening the attraction of shipping manufacturing off-shore.
We do still manufacture defense/war armaments in all 50 states (Jarecki's Why We Fight documentary.)
I'...

They should all quit dancing without Delay.

Dancing with the Stars is a perfect metaphor for present-day America - the Elite having an opulent gala on the deck of the Titanic, while below deck the lower classes are drowning.

And Tom DeLay dancing. I confess I emailed him and begged-with-all-due-respect not to become Huffington Post.