Thomas Hawk sez, “In what I can only view as troubling and a move surely to invite more backlash against photographers, London’s Metropolitan police has launched a new counter-terrorism PR campaign complete with anti-photography propaganda. The campaign is meant to encourage people to turn in ‘odd’ seeming people that they see taking photographs.”
“Thousands of people take photos every day,” reads their advertisement being run in London’s major newspapers. “What if one of them seems odd?”
R200m statue of King Shaka for KwaZulu-Natal: “A 106m statue of King Shaka Zulu ka Senzangakhona will be built on the banks of Thukela River north of Durban, the Weekender newspaper reported on Saturday. The statue would cost R200-million to build and was expected to be 13m higher than the Statue of Liberty in New York. KwaZulu-Natal premier Sbu Ndebele suggested that the statue would become a tourist destination like the Statue of Liberty.”
(Via Mail & Guardian Online.)
You’d think that in a country with hugely pressing issues – like crushing poverty, social inequality, outrageously low pay for teachers, the police and other basic services and massive looming infrastructure disasters with the supply of clean water and electricity – that the government [any sane person or organisation; ed. 19/02] wouldn’t waste money of stuff like this.
‘Friendly’ Worms Could Spread Software Fixes: “An anonymous reader writes ‘Microsoft researchers are working out the perfect strategies for worms to spread through networks. Their goal is to distribute software patches and other friendly information via virus, reducing load on servers. This raises the prospect of worm races — deploying a whitehat worm to spread a fix faster than a new attacking worm can reach vulnerable machines.’
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Just what we need! As if things like automatic Windows updates weren’t intrusive or inherently unpredictable enough Microsoft thinks friendly viruses are the way to patch systems.
She has been included in Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Born in Somalia she chose not to submit to a forced marriage to a man she did not know and she fled to her country of exile; the Netherlands. She is fluent in Somali, Arabic, Amharic, Swahili, English and now Dutch and she soon became a prominent translator for Somali refugees fleeing some of the horrors woman find themselves living under in their Islamic world. She is an outspoken critic for Muslim woman who have no voice and whose lives are filled with abuse, mutilation, sexual subjugation and forced child-bearing. She now lives in exile under constant guard for she is a vocal Islamic apostate and critic and for her sins she is sentenced to die.
Sam Harris and Salmon Rushdie wrote and article about Ali in the Los Angeles Times:
Hirsi Ali may be the first refugee from Western Europe since the Holocaust. As such, she is a unique and indispensable witness to both the strength and weakness of the West: to the splendor of open society and to the boundless energy of its antagonists. She knows the challenges we face in our struggle to contain the misogyny and religious fanaticism of the Muslim world, and she lives with the consequences of our failure each day. There is no one in a better position to remind us that tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.
Her promised protection by the Dutch government has been rescinded and she is in hiding in the United States. The costs of making someone disappear from the eyes of fanatics are great; Sam Harris has created a place where free-thinking people can pledge a small amount of money to help towards her protection and continuing loud and brilliant voice against intolerance and religious extremism.
Links:
Los Angeles Times: Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Abandoned to fanatics
New York Times: Daughter of Enlightenment
Sam Harris’ website: URGENT APPEAL: Please help protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Tags: extremism, islam, muslim, rushdie, atheism, religion, extremist, apostate, apostasy
How to hijack a nation without them even knowing.
Goodling’s involvement in Attorneygate is not the only aspect of her role in the Bush administration that bears examination. Her membership in a cadre of 150 graduates of Pat Robertson’s Regent University currently serving in the administration is another, equally revealing component of the White House’s political program. Goodling earned her law degree from Regent, an institution founded by Robertson “to produce Christian leaders who will make a difference, who will change the world.” Helping to purge politically disloyal federal prosecutors is just one way Goodling has helped fulfill Robertson’s revolutionary goals.
I personally would want no part of Robertson’s changes to the world, a world where his god strikes down people with tsunami’s because of homosexuality; maybe he’d bring back stoning for working on the Sabbath.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070330/cm_huffpost/044588
What a lovely religious ritual – I hope the kids get to watch!
More than a dozen Filipinos were nailed to crosses and scores more whipped their backs into a bloody pulp on Friday in a gory ritual to mark the death of Jesus Christ. The voluntary crucifixions in the northern Philippines were the most extreme displays of religious devotion in this mainly Catholic country, where millions are praying and fasting ahead of the Easter weekend. In the small village of Cutud, about 80km north of Manila, seven men cried out as nails the size of pencils were driven into their hands and feet before they were hoisted up in the scorching heat.
update (04-10) : Photoblog about the crucifixion’s.
This is soooo creepy!
WASHINGTON (AFP) – It has all the ingredients of a wedding. The proud tuxedo-clad father, the frosted white cake, the limousines and an exchange of vows. But there is no groom and the girl in the long gown is no bride. She’s daddy’s little girl, there to take a vow of chastity.
In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed “Purity Balls.” The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship. The highlight is when the fathers and daughters exchange vows, with dad signing a covenant to protect his daughter’s chastity by living an unblemished life and the daughter promising not to have sex until marriage.
Many fathers at the ceremonies also slip “purity rings” around the finger of their misty-eyed daughters or offer them “chastity bracelets” and other jewelry that the girls can entrust to their husbands on their wedding night.
If you haven’t visited DeVaney’s “the God Murders” website I strongly recommend you do. Gary DeVaney started at Genesis and read through to Revelations noting just how unpleasant this Yahweh character is. This website is the culmination of thousands of hours of work and research and should, like the skeptic’s annotated bible, be a must-read for the religious and non-religious alike.
I defy anyone to actually read the contents of these websites and remain faithful to this conceited, petty, jealous, aggressive, homicidal entity who loves only the grovelling and drooling of his creations and sets them up to fail like impotent pieces on a board game. A god who, though supposedly omniscient will then knock over the pieces, get annoyed that they fail and embark on a path of slaughter and suffering on an unprecedented scale to teach a good lesson.
A god who kills women and children because they didn’t believe or happened to be born into the wrong tribe; who employs gestapo style death angels to slaughter children in their sleep (Exodus); who sets wild animals upon taunting children (2 Kings); who ordered the genocide of many non-Israelite people and consigned their women as sex slaves to the victors – this is not a God worthy of respect, worship or any place in modern society.
Richard Dawkins best summed up all believers in the Abrahamic god as:
“a tribal cult of a single fiercely unpleasant God, morbidly obsessed with sexual restrictions, with the smell of charred flesh, with his own superiority over rival gods, and with the exclusiveness of his chosen desert tribe.”
I object to followers of this death cult having any power or say over what happens in this world. I object to raving lunatics not giving a crap about global warming or war because they are eagerly awaiting tribulation and end times. I object to innocent people being killed in the name of this terrible being. I object to children being indoctrinated to continue spreading the myth. I object that this cult still acts as a set of blinkers and a hand-brake to rational thought and scientific enquiry.
It is time for God of the old testament to go, he has no place in the future of mankind.
A recent experience with the department of home affairs left me tearing out what little hair I have left with frustration. We’ve all seen the news reports of the levels of corruption and incompetence rife in the department of home affairs. We’ve heard the esteemed Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula tell us that no jobs would be lost due to gross incompetence because firing someone who couldn’t do their job wasn’t very nice (http://markofinsanity.tumblr.com/post/128713). However all this was merely academic until I needed to check if my passport was ready. I thought it would be a traumatic event so I made notes as I went; here is the full transcript and timestamp as the events unfolded:
Started the process at 12:12
I used the number listed on my passport slip to phone Randburg Home Affairs.
Then I went to the home affairs website, and yip the number was correct, phoned for a 3rd time – number engaged. Went back to the website and looked up the central Pretoria number.
12:15 – called Pretoria, I was placed immediately on hold and then a very rude man listened to half my request before cutting me off and transferring me to a number that just rang and then cut off.
12.47 Back to the website looking for another number
12:47 Got hold of a Mr. Raynold Ndema, Gave me 2 numbers to try
12:48 Got hold of Happy, gave me a number to call
12:50 Got hold of Cosana – he didn’t know how I came to be at his extension as he was in budget control but gave me 4 numbers to try.
12.53 Got hold of Tebogo – disinterested in my request and cut me off saying she was still busy on the other line and then proceeded to chat and laugh in the background for 6 minutes. Caught her checking the line to see if I was still there; I was. Turned out she was the right person; I’d obviously just caught her in the middle of a social session.
13:01 Was informed that one passport was already at Randburg, the other passport hadn’t been attended to and my passport had a smudge on the fingerprints and I had to go back to home affairs to have more fingerprints taken.
Date of passport application: 28 December 2006
Date of this ordeal: 14 March 2007
Number of phone calls from the cell phone number on my application: 0
In the end I had to drive back to home affairs to take more fingerprints. I met a very nice Indian gentleman with a vacant expression in his eyes – the date of his passport application was January 2006; he had been back and forth between Randburg and Pretoria ever since trying to track down his passport.
I was promised that someone would get back to me with information about my application. That was last week and I’m still waiting.
“Trust me to get you to heaven with your hard-earned money…”
I tagged this article today on my tumbler blog; I really had to share it.
A group of conservative Christian leaders is upset by all the attention on climate change and global warming. These fine gentlemen believe that the focus should not be allowed to be taken off the real issues, namely: abortion, same-sex marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence to children [praise the Lord]. I’d love to tell you this is a joke and grown men really haven’t lost their grasp on reality to this extent … I’d love to … but I can’t. I guess when global warming really speeds up all the extreme weather events and people start dying, moronic simian tits like Pat Robertson will blame it on “them gays” again.
A very interesting article by Autine Cline shows just how far men will go to segregate their Gods. It is inconsequential that the roots of all 3 monotheistic religions have their roots firmly entrenched in the same bloody soil; even Christians can’t agree over the fine points of their faith so it comes as little surprise that some Christians, while at war with the noun ‘terror’ and bombing whole countries back to the stone age, haven’t a clue as to what drives terrorists to commit their acts of violence.
As part of the Chanukah celebrations [please someone enlighten me] at the White House, President George W. Bush reportedly described Muslim terrorists as atheists:
Bush said that despite declarations of piety from Muslim radicals now fighting the United States, he doubted that they believed in God. “ ‘Terrorists’ can’t be God-believing people,’ ” Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University, quoted Bush as saying.
Unfortunately for George, if he bothered to replace his advisers with anybody with a bit of common sense, he would learn that the radicals believe a little too much in God. It is a desire to fight for Islam against the infidels of the west, a desire to go to heaven and hand-pick friends and family members [who could be right sods] to join you and a perverse anger at economic western success that should not be the right of the unbelievers that drive people to fly planes into buildings or to detonate themselves as vessels of immolation in God’s ‘righteous and just’ cause. Another interesting point about George’s statement is that is apparently OK for God-fearing people to kill what amount now to 655,000 Iraqis (and counting) with impunity – the old quotation that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter is a cliche for a reason.
Remember that fabulous old article from 2003:
A few weeks ago, George W. Bush noted during an interview that while he glances at newspaper headlines, he “rarely” reads the actual articles because “A lot of times there’s opinions mixed in with news.” So where does he get his info? Bush said he prefers to be briefed by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. “The best way to get the news,” he explained, “is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.”
Let me reiterate the point in case you glossed over it – George gets all his worldly information from his ‘objective’ advisers. How this man ever got elected is really beyond me – this shows a level of gross ignorance that borders on the obscene. Perhaps George should open a book [the old testament doesn't count] from time to time.
As Cline rightly wondered, will George be penning in well know atheists like Harris and Dawkins under Osama? Somehow it wouldn’t surprise me.
We had a wonderful new year spent with friends and their kids. The kids managed to stay awake to see in the new year and sip glasses of non-alcoholic champagne with the adults before collapsing with tiredness. There were the usual crowd of rowdy neighbors however who ignored the ban on private fireworks and the surrounds thudded till 1am to the sound of their callousness. These special people, like lane jumpers and queue hoppers obviously defer to a different set of rules from the rest of us. Pets all around us naturally went ballistic as animals do when confronted by the noise of exploding gunpowder.
Our pets are quite good comparatively, our one cat hides for hours in the cupboard and the dogs, unlike some cases, don’t seem overly perturbed.
There is now a R2000 fine for the private exploding of firecrackers as once again the SPCA calls for a ban on their use and identipet announces a double in the number of hysterical and escaped pets over last years figures.
What are your thoughts on the use of private fireworks?
I have just finished reading the excellent Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Harris, like Dennett and Dawkins is part of the trio of vocal proponents of atheism that have sounded a trumpet call against theistic intolerance and ingrained religious ideologies, The format of this short letter to Christianity is simple in it’s construction yet delivers witty and biting arguments against outdated theistic belief as well as the vacuous platforms of “reason” and pseudo-science used by believers in the so called “intelligent design” movement.
The book is succinct, eloquent and thought provoking. It is neither apologetic for it’s stance nor does it mince words when talking of the fundamentalist madness found in both Christianity and Islam. As in The End of Faith, Harris calls attention to the role of religious moderates as a breeding ground for these fundamentalists. It is yet another in the current deluge of mind-expanding, myth busting books and it is thus very sad that I feel it will only be read by the converted.
I believe very few Christians will ever read this book, fewer still once the evils of the unholy trinity of Dennett, Dawkins and Harris have been expounded from the pulpit. Few champions of intelligent design will get to hear Harris’ excellent point that many biological entities and organic systems are in fact very badly designed. Although we represent the leading edge of the wave of natural selection with those creatures that adapted poorly relegated now to the dusty antiquity of the museum, surely an omniscient and omnipotent designer would have built biological system perfectly and thus perfectly created creatures, barring the odd whimsical flood of mass extinction, would not die out or suffer embarrassing and all to frequent plumbing problems.
Creationists will never take to heart the point that the bible – the purported outpourings of a universally omniscient mind – is full of errors and by now scientifically embarrassing statements like the very poor approximation of pi that had (at the time of it’s writing) already been calculated to a number of decimal points accurately by the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. Indeed the following statement by Harris is both humourous and revealing:
It is absolutely true to say that if the Greek mathematician Archimedes has written the relevant passages in I Kings or II Chronicles, the text would bear much greater evidence of the author’s omniscience.
Surely, Harris asks, the bible would contain some great ideas about mathematics, or the very structure of our universe – it is a big book – surely a place could have been reserved for a cure for AIDS or Cancer – perhaps a little explanation to grieving parents explaining cot death or miscarriage. Indeed modern writers of fiction could do a better job at replicating the mind and thoughts of an omniscient creator although their creative efforts would be very hard pressed in the areas of injustice, bloodiness, viciousness and intolerance.
So this excellent book will not be read by the moderates who have half donned the mantle of their own pernicious brand of religious elitism, some will go on believing the world is a mere 6000 years old – an event that happened after the brewing of beer or the domestication of the dog. The moderates will continue to harbour, through ignorance, the extremists who believe that paradise awaits with martyrdom and murder or that this beautiful world on which we live will become a battle ground of fire and pain in the coming battle between the very binary concepts of good and evil. Our religious leaders will continue to incite to violence and will continue to push us closer to Armageddon than at any time in our history.
We are the sole guardians of our genome; this, now is the foundation for all that humanity can ever achieve or aspire too. It is time we grew up and took some sane and considered responsibility for that fact.
http://www.venganza.org/category/hate-mail/
This is fantastic, hate mail is just so full of anger, resentment and for want of a better word; stupidity. I have really enjoyed myself reading some of the hate mail received by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster. The thing I love best about this is that is seems many of the mailers just haven’t figured out that this is satire, ‘designed’ [I couldn't resist] by Bobby Henderson to make a point in protest to the Kansas court ruling that ‘intelligent design’ be offered as a valid and scientific alternative to the theory of evolution:
Nautilus questions:
How can a thing made by man be god? its fucking spagetti! people EAT IT! why would you let people EAT your god? Everyone I know thinks you are retarded, so congrats there
indeed!
Michael Martin, so full of Christian cheer writes:
flimsy moral standards? Lets see here. If I were to shoot your wife, would you have a problem with that?
It seems that Michael might be one of those ‘good ol boys’ where the distinction between guns, religion and sex with your sister is a little blurred.
One individual on the old blog site has this to say:
Yo Bobby, You are an ignorant ignoramous!! Why can’t you and all of your atheist cohorts just keep your big, fat traps closed when it comes to even a HINT of GOD!!! What are you afraid of???? Darwin’s rantings (sorry, not even enough scientific evidence to even CALL it a theory) have NO basis–time has proven that. Our schoolkids are being totally cheated out of the truth—and it is people like you that turn it into a farce when a viable alternative is presented!!! When you deny kids the knowledge of an Intelligent Designer that created them for a specific purpose—-you deny them a true purpose in life and deny them the ability to cherish this wonderful life and world God created just for us humans……….Your website makes me ill—-but I will be praying for you! Don’t worry—God does love you even though you are vehemently pushing him away right now and we will ALL be judged when we die. Do you feel good about taking your atheism one step further or what????
He/She is obviously in need of some basic grammar and science lessons. ‘Not enough scientific evidence’? A word to anonymous from me – ‘Show me your evidence and I’ll show you mine 
- and one question mark usually suffices as a sentence terminator’.
I would love to try and quantify just how much more ignorant an ignorant ignoramus is compared with your basic garden-variety ignoramus but alas I find it hard.
and lastly fd cuts to the intellectual chase with his excellent piece of logical deduction:
This is fucking retarded, a flying piece of fucking spaghetti can not create the universe, considering spaghetti was made by man, and monsters from man’s imagination. SO FUCK FSM
Yip, he’s got us all there.
photo by Santosh Korthiwada.
Seven thousand fewer girls are born in India each day than the global average would suggest, largely because female foetuses are aborted after sex-determination tests, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said on Tuesday.
The problem of female foeticide has significantly worsened since 1991, Unicef said at the India launch of its State of the World’s Children 2007 report.
Out of 71 000 children born every day in India, just 31 000 are girls — giving a sex ratio of 882 girls to 1 000 boys.
But the global sex ratio — which is 954 girls to 1 000 boys — suggests that 38,000 girls should be born in India every day.
Despite laws banning sex-determination tests, female foeticide is common in much of India, where families view boys as being a better asset than girls.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned Western leaders to follow the path of God or “vanish from the face of the earth”. “These oppressive countries are angry with us … a nation that on the other side of the globe has risen up and proved the shallowness of their power,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the northern town of Ramsar, the semi-official news agency Mehr reported Wednesday. “They are angry with our nation. But we tell them ’so be it and die from this anger’. Rest assured that if you do not respond to the divine call, you will die soon and vanish from the face of the earth,” he said.
Mmmh embrace the Abrahamic Sky God and his millennia of oppression, fear and disdain of woman – I think not.
Still scary there are individuals in positions of power who think like this.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/06/061206101357.8mjamnal.html
ISTANBUL: A lavishly illustrated ‘Atlas of Creation’ is mysteriously turning up at schools and libraries in Turkey, proclaiming that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is the real root of terrorism. Arriving unsolicited by post, the large-format tome offers 768 glossy pages of photographs and easy-to-read text to prove that God created the world with all its species. At first sight, it looks like it could be the work of US creationists, the Christian fundamentalists who believe the world was created in six days as told in the Bible. But the author’s name, Harun Yahya, reveals the surprise inside. This is Islamic creationism, a richly funded movement based in predominantly Muslim Turkey which has an influence US creationists could only dream of.
The anti-abortion activists are at it again, this time choosing the festive season of Christmas in which to launch their tirade. In a very poor and unsubtle dig at Richard Dawkins who points out in ‘The God Delusion’ that many of today’s conflicts have at their heart religious conflict, The Rev. Louis Sheldon feels we should – at this time of year bear the little children in mind.
Taking biblical quotes entirely out of context he quotes Mark 10:13-16,
“And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, ‘Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.’ And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.”
to voice his opinion that America and other countries are committing wide-spread child genocide
The systematic killing of, or a program of action intended to destroy, a whole national or ethnic group. I do believe that when we systematically kill over 1.4 MILLION American babies each year — this qualifies to be called GENOCIDE. A rose is a rose — and Genocide is Genocide; regardless of what its proponents want to label it.
You guessed it again, apparently Christmas is the time to flog the old hobby horse of abortion – talk about a Christmas Grinch!
For a good chuckle read Rev. Sheldon’s imbecilic article entitled ‘ Atheism Has Fueled Greatest Mass Murders In World History’ on the same page – no doubt a stimulating intellectual rebuttal of the Dawkin’s statement (I think not …):
According to the good pastor,
The fact is that Christians have been at the forefront of expanding and defending human freedom around the globe ever since the First Century Church was founded.
and
The Crusades were launched to regain land conquered by Muslims and to prevent Muslim armies from invading and conquering any more nations! It was a defensive war against Muslim imperialism.
Perhaps the good Pastor could be of more service bearing the millions of starving, malnourished and uneducated children all over the world in mind rather than having a thrombosis over a couple of undeveloped embryos. I guess though that that would take some “putting his money where his mouth was” and would undoubtedly require more real effort on his part than waxing lyrical from the comfort of his pulpit.
The Cruelty of Pseudo-Science
by Stuart Forsyth
Every so often I am forced to write about products that are touted as cure-alls, panaceas for any number of horrific illnesses and how groups of marketeers are able to get away with advertising these products legitimately. I have a medical background and having once been involved with homoeopathy I am very sensitive to medical pseudo-science of any type because if it can con a reasonably healthy skeptic, then people who are desperate for any glimmer of hope in an otherwise desolate situation are easy game.
The latest farce to come to my attention through a work colleague is the MediZone BubbleSpar (http://www.medi-zone.co.za). Allow me the luxury of quoting their marketing blurb in it’s entirety before I attempt to rip it limb from limb.
For the millions of people afflicted with dread diseases (Cancer, AIDS, Heart attack, Stroke, Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Diabetes etc) and numerous other so called “ common ailments” (Asthma, Sinusitis, Arthritis, Rheumatism, Hay fever, Skin Disorders etc) the information contained in this website may astound them. It will also bring new hope in a world fraught with expensive medicines, countless therapies and treatments!
Lets pause for a moment here to examine the diseases this bubble mat can help with. HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus) is a retrovirus that is responsible for attacking the immune system. The syndrome of symptoms that follows is known as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficient Syndrome). Eventually the immune system fails to such an extent that life-threatening opportunistic infections like TB or pneumonia kill you. Does it sound like a bubbly bath mat can help with this? I suppose in South Africa, where our health minister touts the African potato and garlic as effective alternatives to anti-retrovirals at the Toronto conference, anything is possible.
Stroke or cerebrovascular accident occurs where blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted – often resulting in that affected area of the brain being damaged leading to crippling neurological and physiological conditions. No doubt bubbly Ozone can re-grow brain matter – excellent! … next.
Alzheimer’s occurs due to neuron loss or damage in the brain and is a progressively degenerative condition that leads ultimately to the most terrible forms of dementia. Perhaps the makers of the BubbleSpar mean for Alzheimer’s patients to enjoy the rejuvenating effects of a tickling bubbles while they smear their faeces on the wall. Multiple sclerosis is a caused by chronic inflammation of the Central nervous system resulting in muscle weakness, impaired speech and movement, fatigue and pain – I grant that warmth may relieve the inflammatory condition but that is as far as I will go, as to being able to cure this condition – I think not.
and to finish up:
Diabetes, in a nutshell, is a metabolic disorder whereby the pancreas stops producing insulin that regulates the uptake of carbohydrates by the cells. Who needs insulin injections to preventing you dying .. bubble bubble.
They go on to use the wonderful method of conning the public called “Blinding by Science”. Blinding by Science is the attempt to con a lay person into believing your false claims by introducing just enough scientific (or scientific sounding) information to make it sound convincing. People by their nature are averse to arguing with others more in the know and thus tend to back down when you throw science-babble or mathematical equations at them. The makers of products such as these prey on either fear or hope and use the method of blinding by science as they know full well that their target audience is not well grounded in scientific principal.
There is a humorous anecdote about the ability of science to blind.
Diderot had been invited to the court by Catherine the Great, but then annoyed her by trying to convert everyone to atheism. Catherine asked Euler for help, and he informed Diderot, who was ignorant of mathematics, that he would present in court an algebraic proof of the existence of God, if Diderot wanted to hear it. Diderot was interested, and, according to De Morgan, Euler advanced toward Diderot, and said gravely, and in a tone of perfect conviction: “Sir, ( a + bn )/n = x , hence God exists; reply! ” Diderot had no reply, and the court broke into laughter. Diderot immediately returned to France.
Back to the “proof” of the Bubbly Bath Mat – Medizone quotes the following as scientific proof for Cancer:
In 1926, two times Nobel Prize winner for Medicine, Dr Otto Warburg of the Kaizer Institute in Berlin, announced to the world his findings on his research on oxygen and cancer in the human body. THE CAUSE OF ALL CANCER IS THE LACK OF OXYGEN AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL IN THE BODY!
1926, just in case you missed it – before antibiotics (Flemming and Penicillin, 1928) or a proper understanding of the atom (Schroedinger and Heisenberg, 1926) – I feel sure a 1926 doctor knew a lot more about cancer than the millions of current professionals the world over who dedicate their life to understanding the intricacies of this cellular proliferation gone wrong.
The Medizone website provides some very basic and inaccurate information regarding what Ozone is and how it is beneficial for you. They make no attempt to show how a bubble spar could make any difference to reducing or killing the HIV virus, or reversing cells gone mad in their proliferation or fixing a pancreas that can no longer produce insulin. Advertising is especially good at this, any number of fat pill on the market have pictures of people in white coats holding pipettes and looking pensive. “Gee look ma, dem are scientists, surely to goodness dey know what dey doin!”
The medizone “proof” for the rejuvenating effects of Ozone are the following ridiculous anecdotes
In Asia the people of Tibet is reported to live up to an average age of 132-135 years of age while an Indian tribe in the Peruvian mountains in South America reaches 145-150 years of age! Upon investigation it was found that these people at age 80-90 years old look like we do at the age of 40-50 years old. They work 2-3 times harder than we do…
This is completely unjustified and any sane person would surely call for the proof as journal article or quotation from any number of reputable scientific sources, I am sure that should people live to these unbelievable ages, science and the Guinness book would know about it and their lack of supporting evidence shows this to be merely anecdotal and entirely false. Searching back in time in Tibetan literature, most of the highly ranked monastic officials who really did all the right things including meditation and exercise and weren’t subjected to “hard labour” lived to the ripe old age of 70 or in some extreme cases 80. Extreme longevity however abounds in myth, in the stories of Methuselah and other religious icons of all faiths. The Canada-Tibet Committee recently published findings that the average life expectancy in the region has almost doubled: from 35.5 years of age to 67 years of age.
After quoting all this spurious crap, their disclaimer goes on to say – and this sums it all up for me – “There are no health claims being made in the areas of Therapy and Scientific validity”. Whatever happened to standing by the courage of your convictions. They are quoting “science” as a means of justifying their bubbly bath mat as a cure all and then in the disclaimer go on to say we are not making any claims that this product has any therapeutic or scientific validity. They have to put this in I suppose, God forbid someone actually dies from throwing out the insulin or chemotherapy and lazing about all day on the bubbly bath mat.
The sad thing about this is that there is very little recourse for people who are conned to this level. Unlike victims of traditional monetary fraud, the cancer patient who has a relapse through discontinuing her treatment has absolutely nobody to turn to. It would not stand up in court – it very clearly states in the disclaimer that they cannot be held liable for anything because they didn’t say it was scientific or had a therapeutic effect. So people can go on, becoming very rich in the process, selling misinformation, preying on the misery and suffering of others and offering them false hope and not lose a penny or a sleepless night in the process.
This almost makes me wish I was a religious man, then I could claim some comfort in the concepts of eternal damnation, hell-fire and brimstone.
StuartForsyth.com
New Comments Policy
20 02 2008In order to avoid having random trolling on this site and promote intelligent discussions and conversation I am implementing initial comment moderation on this blog. It’s all too easy for unpleasant people to troll around randomly and be abusive for no good reason other than they clearly have issues and they can.
I had a run in with a bunch of real idiots recently who have mastered the art of character assassination and revolting verbal abuse where it really wasn’t called for; I have subsequently deleted their trash.
Please understand this is not any form of censorship – I find that concept abhorrent so feel free to have your say and leave your differing opinion and let’s debate differing opinions; abuse and stupidity will no longer be tolerated though, there are chat rooms and places where stupid trolls can congregate and this is not one of them.
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Categories : Abuse, Blogging, Comments, Human Stupidity, Trolls, blog