There’s a group of entertainers I’ve hung out with over the years. They make much of the money for their work by passing the hat, which means they have to engage their audience. Even among them, there’s a saying: “The cost of your ticket does not include a speaking role.”

Whether you’re new to Quiche Moraine because you’re curious or follow one of the main cobloggers here on Twitter or Facebook, chances are good you’ve seen the words “libel” and “defamation” floating around very recently. Here’s the scoop.

If you follow the race-IQ discussion, you’ll note that the entire edifice is calibrated to questions of work and class. As long as classism stands, the arguments of inherent ability will be plausible to far too many people, and the problem of blacks in poverty will be used to justify itself. Just as racism has always been used to justify poverty.

Over the weekend, I authored a guest post on a peer-reviewed publication. I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, but it was an opportunity to apply some of my thoughts regarding my upcoming session on Trust and Critical Thinking for ScienceOnline, which seeks ideas on how to report science in a way that teaches readers to interact with information skeptically.

Apropos of the continuing tendency for white supremacists to show up crowing about IQ, here is some reading that may help people understand the history of IQ testing and its relationship to the complex phenomena that lumped under the term “intelligence.”

You’ve met them. “Oh, those scientists. They get their funding from the government/industry/political think tanks. They’re just producing the results needed to keep their money flowing. They’ll say anything it takes. Besides, it’s not like they don’t make mistakes. Even Newton and Einstein had it wrong.”

If you ever have to go to the emergency room, don’t forget to bring a book. It will distract you from Larry King in the waiting room and all the people he has on to yell at each other about Sarah Palin. It will give you something to do besides worry as you wait in the examination room and feel the blood flow out of you. It will keep you company as you stay awake all through the night waiting for someone who can fix you.

There’s no place better than the internet to be sick. No, really. The people around here are amazing. I would have had a truly miserable last couple of months without them.

Dressed, you walk back down the hall, dazed a little with the impersonal, helpful violence that’s just been done to you. You remember now that someone online suggested taking ibuprofen before the appointment and wish you’d remembered earlier.

Discovering that our fears are irrational should provide us the ideal solution for that security trade-off: diminished fear at no cost to us. But what happens in real life? I got to find out this week.