For those who haven't heard about this yet, I thought this would be a good way to show the potentially insidious effect of biased, one-sided analysis and presentation of evidence under ulterior motives, and the importance of seeking out counter-arguments before accepting a point, even when the evidence being presented to support that point is true.

"[DHMO] has been a part of nature longer than we have; what gives us the right to eliminate it?" - Pro-DHMO web site.

DHMO (hydroxilic acid), commonly found in excised tumors and lesions of terminal lung and throat cancer patients, is a compound known to occur in second hand tobacco smoke. Prolonged exposure in solid form causes severe tissue damage, and a proven link has been established between inhalation of DHMO (even in small quantities) and several deaths, including many young children whose parents were heavy smokers.

It's also used as a solvent during the synthesis of cocaine, in certain forms of particularly cruel and unnecessary animal research, and has been traced to the distribution process of several cases of pesticides causing genetic damage and birth defects. But there are huge political and financial incentives to continue using the compound.

There have been efforts across the world to ban DHMO - an Australian MP has announced a campaign to ban it internationally - but little progress. Several online petitions to the British prime minister on this subject have been rejected. The executive director of the public body that operates Louisville Waterfront Park was actually criticised for posting warning signs on a public fountain that was found to contain DHMO. Jacqui Dean, New Zealand National Party MP was simily told "I seriously doubt that the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs would want to spend any time evaluating that substance".

If you haven't guessed why, re-read my first sentence then click here.

HT the Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide.

[Edit to clarify point:] I'm not saying truth is in any way bad. Truth rocks. I'm reminding you truth is *not sufficient*. When they're given treacherously or used recklessly, truth is as toxic as hydroxilic acid.

Follow-up to: Comment in The Forbidden Post.

I thought Recommended Rationalist Reading was very useful and interesting. Now we have voting and threading it seems a good time to comprehensively gather opinions on online material.

Please suggest high-quality links related to or useful for improving rationality. It could be a blog, a forum, a great essay, a reference site, an e-book, anything clickable. Anyone interested can then check out what looks promising and report back.

[edit]
There seems to be confusion... The post's for online material, not physical books. We already have Recommended Rationalist Reading, but as that hasn't got threading and voting, if people think it's a good idea I (or someone else) can do a seperate post for books [metaedit] ...not happening, is against blog guidelines. [/metaedit]

Looks like we're getting lots of suggestions, so please don't forget to vote on them so busier readers have an idea which ones are worth more investigating!
[/edit]

Contributors - if making multiple suggestions, please give each their own comment so we can vote on them separately. Click 'Help' for how to do links.

Voters - for top level comments containing suggestions (as oppose to comments replying to suggestions) please vote on the quality of the resource, not anything else in the comment. If you feel strongly about the comment quality, just post a sub-comment.

Here's 3 to get started: